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European Journal of Applied Physiology
Published in: European Journal of Applied Physiology 9/2015

01-09-2015 | Original Article

Multi-muscle coordination during a challenging stance

Authors: Wen-Chieh Yang, Chih-Hsiu Cheng, Hsing-Kuo Wang, Kwan-Hwa Lin, Wei-Li Hsu

Published in: European Journal of Applied Physiology | Issue 9/2015

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aimed to identify the muscle synergies during standing under various sensory contexts in healthy young adults.

Methods

Sixteen healthy young adults participated in this study. The 4-min stance task was conducted under vision (eyes open or eyes closed) and proprioception (standing on ground or narrowed blocks) manipulated contexts. Electromyography (EMG) of 8 muscles around the right side of the trunk and leg were recorded and submitted to principal component analysis (PCA) to extract the muscle synergies. Two-way ANOVA with repeated measures was employed to test the effect of sensory contexts on the muscle synergies.

Results

PCA extracted three muscle synergies that accounted for the variance of standing EMG, including the push-back (composed of medial gastrocnemius, vastus medialis and biceps femoris), push-forward (composed of tibialis anterior and rectus femoris) and proximal mixed (composed of rectus abdominis, rector spinae, rectus femoris and biceps femoris) synergies. Block-standing increased the contribution of the push-back synergy while decreased the contribution of the push-forward synergy. In addition, contribution of the proximal mixed synergy was higher under ground-standing with eyes open than under block-standing with eyes open.

Conclusion

Three muscle synergies were identified during standing in healthy young adults, and the synergies were affected by proprioception but not visual disturbance. The push-back and push-forward synergies showed the opposite response to proprioceptive disturbance, which may result from their antagonism role. Whether this control regime is used for elderly adults or patient populations with movement disorder needs to be further investigated.
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Metadata
Title
Multi-muscle coordination during a challenging stance
Authors
Wen-Chieh Yang
Chih-Hsiu Cheng
Hsing-Kuo Wang
Kwan-Hwa Lin
Wei-Li Hsu
Publication date
01-09-2015
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
European Journal of Applied Physiology / Issue 9/2015
Print ISSN: 1439-6319
Electronic ISSN: 1439-6327
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-015-3158-0

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