Elsevier

Human Movement Science

Volume 12, Issue 5, September 1993, Pages 537-576
Human Movement Science

Organizational principles for the coordination of lifting

https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-9457(93)90004-9Get rights and content

Abstract

Near-continuous measures of inter-joint coordination and the smoothness and variability of individual joint motions were studied to explore principles underlying the coordination of squat-lifting. Measures of relative phasing between joint movements changed continuously as the lifted load was increased, despite subjects' attempts to maintain the same pattern of coordination for all lifts. Differences were found between the lifting and lowering phases of the task. The stability of coordination among lower extremity joints was found to decrease continuously with changes in the relative phase of these joints when lifting heavier loads. However, knee-lumbar spine and knee-shoulder coordination showed minimal or no change in stability with load changes.

Inter-trial variability and jerkiness of individual joint excursions were greater than similar measures of the hand/crate trajectory. The results support movement planning in terms of the end-effector spatial trajectory rather than individual joint trajectories.

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    This work was supported by research grants from the University of Delaware Research Foundation and from the Foundation for Physical Therapy. The author is grateful to Dr. John Jeka for his helpful comments and discussions on this article and to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Thanks to Jeff Millford, Amy McMillan and Kyna Darrow for their assistance with data analysis.

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