Joint Angles and Joint Moments of the Lower Limbs in Four Typical Tai Chi Movements: Consideration for Management of Knee Osteoarthritis

ABSTRACT

This study examined the biomechanics of the lower limbs during four typical Tai Chi (TC) movements: wave hand in cloud, leaning fly side, repulse monkey, and brush knee and twist step, in order to provide biomechanical evidence-based recommendations for patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) practicing TC. Joint angles and joint moments of the hip, knee, and ankle in frontal and sagittal plane as well as ground reaction forces were examined while performing TC and regular walking in an experienced 38 years old TC master. The results showed that relative to walking, the four TC movements are characterized by a wide motion range of lower limbs, slow increase in joint loading, and strong muscle activity during performance. Therefore, these TC movements could be suitable for patients with knee OA to practice for improving the muscle strength of their lower limbs and functional ability.

KEYWORDS:

• Tai Chi
• kinetics
• kinematics
• ground reaction forces
• range of motion

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the team staff in School of Human Kinetics from University of Ottawa who participated in this study, as well as the staff of Chinese Medicine Department from Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine in Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81973973 and 81874512), and Shanghai Municipal Health Commission of China (2018LP040 and ZY2018-2020- CCCX-2004-02).