The Effects of Personalized Versus Generic Scaling of Body Segment Masses on Joint Torques During Stationary Wheelchair Racing

The anthropometries of elite wheelchair racing athletes differ from the generic, able-bodied anthropometries commonly used in computational biomechanical simulations. The impact of using able-bodied parameters on the accuracy of simulations involving wheelchair racing is currently unknown. In this study, athlete-specific mass segment inertial parameters of the head and neck, torso, upper arm, forearm, hand, thigh, shank, and feet for five elite wheelchair athletes were calculated using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans. These were compared against commonly used anthropometrics parameters of data presented in the literature. A computational biomechanical simulation of wheelchair propulsion using the upper extremity dynamic model in opensim assessed the sensitivity of athlete-specific mass parameters using Kruskal-Wallis analysis and Spearman correlations. Substantial between-athlete body mass distribution variances (thigh mass between 7.8% and 22.4% total body mass) and between-limb asymmetries (<62.4% segment mass; 3.1 kg) were observed. Compared to nonathletic able-bodied anthropometric data, wheelchair racing athletes demonstrated greater mass in the upper extremities (up to 3.8% total body mass) and less in the lower extremities (up to 9.8% total body mass). Computational simulations were sensitive to individual body mass distribution, with joint torques increasing by up to 31.5% when the scaling of segment masses (measured or generic) differed by up to 2.3% total body mass. These data suggest that nonathletic, able-bodied mass segment inertial parameters are inappropriate for analyzing elite wheelchair racing motion.