Muscle wobbling mass dynamics: eigenfrequency dependencies on activity, impact strength, and ground material

In legged locomotion, muscles undergo damped oscillations in response to the leg contacting the ground (an impact). How muscle oscillates varies depending on the impact situation. We used a custom-made frame in which we clamped an isolated rat muscle (M. gastrocnemius medialis and lateralis: GAS) and dropped it from three different heights and onto two different ground materials. In fully activated GAS, the dominant eigenfrequencies were 163 Hz, 265 Hz, and 399 Hz, which were signficantly higher (p < 0.05) compared to the dominant eigenfrequencies in passive GAS: 139 Hz, 215 Hz, and 286 Hz. In general, neither changing the falling height nor ground material led to any significant eigenfrequency changes in active nor passive GAS, respectively. To trace the eigenfrequency values back to GAS stiffness values, we developed a 3DoF model. The model-predicted GAS muscle eigenfrequencies matched well with the experimental values and deviated by − 3.8%, 9.0%, and 4.3% from the passive GAS eigenfrequencies and by − 1.8%, 13.3%, and − 1.5% from the active GAS eigenfrequencies. Differences between the frequencies found for active and passive muscle impact situations are dominantly due to the attachment of myosin heads to actin.