The Joint Moment Distribution of the Lower Extremity During Tai Chi Gait Richard Pearlman 1 , John E. Kovaleski 2 , Jonathan Wolfe 1 and Wei Liu 3* 1 School of Medicine, University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama, USA 2 Department of Health, Physical Education, University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama, USA 3 Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine Auburn, Auburn, Alabama, USA * Corresponding author: Wei Liu, Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine Auburn, Auburn, Alabama, USA, Tel: 443-909-8221; Fax: 850-939-4152; E-mail: wliu@auburn.vcom.edu Received date: January 26, 2017; Accepted date: February 07, 2017; Published date: February 10, 2017 Copyright: © 2017 Pearlman R, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Background: As an alternative and complementary practice, Tai Chi is becoming increasingly popular in the United States, especially among the elderly. Although several interventional and qualitative biomechanical studies have been performed, a quantitative approach, such as multi-joints kinetics synergy of ankle, knee and hip, has yet to be performed. To better understand the biomechanics of Tai Chi, the characteristics of the total support moment synergy were studied during Tai Chi gait and compared to normal gait. Methods: Ten healthy, experienced (two years) Tai Chi Chuan practitioners performed normal walking and Tai Chi gait while data was collected using high-speed infrared motion analysis cameras. The joint distributions of the ankle, knee, and hip were calculated by ratio between individual joint moment impulse and total support moment impulse. Using a paired t-test, the joint moment distributions of the lower limb were compared between Tai Chi gait and normal walking. Results: The total support moment of Tai Chi walking was predominated by the contribution of the knee (ankle: 32.78 ± 1.25%; knee: 58.68 ± 1.84%; hip: 8.54 ± 1.91%) whereas the ankle was the primary contributor to support in normal walking (ankle: 67.86 ± 2.76%; knee: 26.18 ± 2.69%; hip: 5.96 ± 1.83%). The contributions of all three joints studied differed significantly (p<0.05) between Tai Chi gait and normal gait. Conclusion: This study demonstrates different kinetics synergy patterns between Tai Chi gait and normal gait. Importantly, Tai Chi gait places a high mechanical demand on the knee joint. Our results provide biomechanical basis of Tai Chi’s benefits on increasing knee joint range of motion and muscle strength, also suggest that prescribing Tai Chi as a potential therapy for people with joint disease, it needs a careful consideration of evaluating mechanical response of people with joint disease during Tai Chi exercise due to higher mechanical demand on the knee joint. Keywords: Tai chi; Total support moment; Gait; Support strategy Background Tai Chi Chuan (TCC) exercise is becoming an increasingly popular complementary and alternative approach for both healthy people and patients with a variety of medical conditions in the United States [1]. In the past two decades, promising evidence suggests that TCC provides multiple benefcial efects that include improved balance, increased postural stability, and decreased fall risk [2]. Increased muscular strength, pain reduction for patients with arthritis, reduction of stress, and enhanced cardiovascular function have been proposed as potential benefts of TCC [3-6]. Although TCC has been shown to have many benefts, the mechanism of TCC at the neuromuscular and musculoskeletal levels is less understood. As a form of physical activity, TCC is a continuous, slow and rhythmic movement, involving dynamic weight shifing strategies between two limbs during loading and unloading. Tese characteristics of TCC require coordinated control of the ankle, knee, and hip [7]. Quantifying the biomechanical characteristics of TCC will aid in our understanding of the movement strategies used in TCC, provide direct evidence of the neuromuscular and musculoskeletal responses of the human body during TCC, and lead to the development of more efective TCC treatment. Previous studies on the biomechanical quantifcations of TCC mainly focused on essential and basic TCC movements such as Tai Chi gait (TCG) due to the fact that TCC has varieties of forms and styles. We believe TCG to be an ideal movement to study for biomechanical analysis because TCG and walking are both a means of bipedal forward locomotion and each have distinct double support and single stance phases. Since the same gait analysis terminology has been used to describe TCG, it has been referred to as a specifc gait strategy. Past research has examined temporal and spatial measures of TCG, such as stride length; basic kinematic descriptive information, such as range of motion (ankle, knee, and hip joints); and kinetics, such as the ground reaction force (GRF), joint moment, and contact force of the lower extremities [8,9]. Tis biochemical information gives insight into the movements of TCC by isolating individual joints. Te main motor function of walking and TCG is to support the body and prevent lower limb Liu et al., Altern Integr Med 2017, 6:1 DOI: 10.4172/2327-5162.1000228 Research Article Open Access Altern Integr Med, an open access journal ISSN:2327-5162 Volume 6 • Issue 1 • 1000228 Alternative & Integrative Medicine A l t e r n a t i v e & I n t e g r a t i v e M e d i c i n e ISSN: 2327-5162