Evaluation of gender-related differences in co-contraction activity of shank muscles during gait

This study aims to investigate the possible differences between genders in co-contractions of tibialis anterior (TA) and gastrocnemius lateralis (GL), during walking at self-selected speed. To this purpose, the statistical gait analysis (SGA) was performed on seven female (F-group) and seven male (M-group) adults. SGA is a recently developed methodology for the characterization of gait, by averaging spatiotemporal and electromyographic parameters over hundreds of strides per subject. Co-contractions were assessed as the overlapping periods between TA and GL activity. Results showed that four co-contraction intervals are present during gait cycle in both groups. No relevant differences between genders were detected in onset-offset time instants of co-activations or in their temporal length. On the contrary, significant differences were observed in the number of strides where each co-contraction happens (i.e. the occurrence frequency). All the four co-contraction intervals result significantly (p<0.05) more recurrent in females compared to males. This outcome suggests a larger presence of co-contraction activity in females walking, related to a female tendency for a more complex muscular strategy during gait. These findings could be useful to better understand gender differences in walking mechanisms and to develop separated normal walking reference frames for males and females.