What is plantiflexion?

The plantiflexion It is the name given to the movement of the foot that increases its angle of 90 degrees with respect to the tibia. This movement is also known as plantar flexion or plantarflexion..

Plantarflexion involves increasing the angle formed between the foot and the tibia. The increment of said angle is usually between 30 and 60 degrees. The opposite movement, which involves the reduction of the angle, is known as dorsiflexion or dorsalextension..

The most common situations where plantiflexion is witnessed are when climbing stairs, when wearing high-heeled shoes or in some exercises that exercise the calf muscles of the legs..

Plantiflexion is also observed when shooting a ball with the ball of the foot or in many typical ballet movements..

The study of plantar flexion movement has led to several developments in areas such as medicine and the design of humanoid robots..

Implications in medicine

In general, the plantiflexion movement, like the dorsiflexion movement, is not painful. In medicine, it is evaluated whether a patient experiences pain or not when performing the plantiflexion to make diagnoses of fatigue or abnormal stretching of the structures of the foot.

Plantiflexion is widely used in orthopedics to obtain information about patients who may have problems with the ankle or the joints in the foot. Some conditions that involve pain when performing the plantiflexion movement are:

Inferior tibiotalar ligament sprain

This ailment is caused by stress on the ligament when planted. It is common in soccer players and manifests itself in chronic pain even with mild plantiflexion movements.

Posterior periostitis

Also known as the dancers' heel, it manifests as an ailment in the back of the heel when performing the plant flexion.

Involves injury to the cartilage and periosteal ligation at the rear of the lower tibia.

Periostitis of the trigone bone

It is diagnosed when there is pain in passive plantiflexion and limitation to perform the plantiflexion movement.

This ailment appears when the trigone bone becomes tight between the tibia and the tarsus causing swelling and pain.

Robot design and biomechanical analysis

Another important point of plantiflexion is its study for the design of robots and the performance of biomechanical analyzes of the human body..

The design of humanoid robots in the area of ​​mechanical engineering implies in-depth knowledge of the plantiflexion movement and the muscles involved for it..

Such robots are usually required to be able to perform activities such as running and jumping, which involve plant bending movements..

Robots designed with these characteristics can be used in fields as diverse as space exploration or medicine to study injuries suffered by athletes..

Plantiflexion is also important to analyze the biomechanical movements of the feet in the study of various human activities..

For example, the movements that involve the practice of a specific sport or even the movements that are carried out in recreational activities such as games with Hulla-Hop hoops..

References

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6. Villa C. et al. Evolution of vaulting strategy during locomotion of individuals with transfemoral amputation on slopes and cross-slopes compared to level walking. Clinical Biomechanics. 2015; (30) 623-628.