Sex differences in Achilles tendon behaviour during walking
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The Achilles tendon (AT) plays a crucial role in locomotion. Differences in AT morphological and mechanical properties between men and women may therefore contribute to sex-differences in tendon behavior. This study aimed to investigate sex-based differences in AT strain behavior and derived mechanical properties during walking. Seventeen men and fifteen women walked shod at their preferred velocity on an instrumented treadmill. Gait kinematics and AT displacement were captured synchronously using 3D motion capture and ultrasound imaging, respectively. A MANOVA was used to examine sex differences in morphological and mechanical properties (AT force, stress, strain, stiffness, elastic modulus, hysteresis, strain energy) and a separate one-way ANOVA used to examine walking parameters. Time-series data (AT force, displacement, strain, AT loading rate, shortening velocity, instantaneous AT moment arm length and ankle angle) were assessed with 1D statistical parametric mapping. Results indicated that men had significantly greater AT dimensions and stiffness than women. Women exhibited greater peak AT displacement and strain during the push-off phase, while AT loading rates were higher in men in late stance. These findings suggest potential sex-specific differences in AT behavior during dynamic activities, providing further insights into tendon biomechanics. Future research should explore AT mechanics under higher loading conditions and across different age groups to comprehensively understand sex differences in tendon behaviour.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".