Tibial strains are sensitive to speed, but not grade, perturbations during running.

A fatigue-failure process is hypothesized to govern the development of tibial stress fractures, where bone damage is highly dependent on the peak strain magnitude. To date, much of the work examining tibial strains during running has ignored uphill and downhill running despite the prevalence of this terrain. This study examined the sensitivity of tibial strains to changes in running grade and speed using a combined musculoskeletal-finite element modeling routine. Seventeen participants ran on a treadmill at ±10°, ±5°, and 0°; at each grade, participants ran at 3.33 ms-1 and at a grade-adjusted speed -2.50 and 4.17 ms-1 for uphill and downhill grades, respectively. Force and motion data were recorded in each grade and speed combination. Muscle and joint contact forces were estimated using inverse-dynamics-based static optimization. These forces were applied to a participant-adjusted finite element model of the tibia. None of the strain variables (50th and 95th percentile strain and strained volume ≥4000 μɛ) differed as a function of running grade; however, all strain variables were sensitive to running speed (F ≥ 9.59, p ≤ 0.03). In particular, a 1 ms-1 increase in speed resulted in a 9% (≈260 μɛ) and 155% (≈ 600 mm3) increase in peak strain and strained volume, respectively. Overall, these findings suggest that faster running speeds, but not changes in running grade, may be more deleterious to the tibia. • High-magnitude tibial strains that are implicated in stress-fracture development were sensitive to changes in running speed but not grade. • The majority of the variance in measures of tibial strain was accounted for by individual subject variation, reinforcing the importance of inherent musculoskeletal properties in determining the bone strain environment.