Normalization of muscle activity has been commonly used to determine the amount of force exerted by a muscle. The most widely used reference point for normalization is the maximum voluntary contraction (MVC). However, MVCs are often subjective, and potentially limited by sensation of pain in injured individuals. The objective of the current study was to develop a normalization technique that pr...

The present study was designed to determine whether fatigue alters the ability to estimate an index of individual muscle force from shear elastic modulus measurements (experiment I), and to test the ability of this technique to highlight changes in load sharing within a redundant muscle group during an isometric fatiguing task (experiment II). Twelve subjects participated in experiment I, which...

The objective of the study is to examine the effects of age and gender on finger coordination. Twelve young (24 +/- 8 yr; 6 men and 6 women) and 12 elderly (75 +/- 5 yr; 6 men and 6 women) subjects performed single-finger maximal contraction [maximal voluntary contraction (MVC)], four-finger MVC, and four-finger ramp force production tasks by pressing on individual force transducers. A drop in ...

The objective of this study was to determine the frequency profile, median frequency (MF) and mean power frequency (MPF) of trunk muscles in an isometric graded maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) in isometric axial trunk rotation from a neutral upright seated posture. Twelve young healthy subjects (seven males, five females) were instrumented with surface electrodes on their external obliques,...

This study investigates the control mechanisms at the cortical and spinal levels of antagonist coactivation during a submaximal fatiguing contraction of the elbow flexors at 50% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC). We recorded motor-evoked potentials in the biceps brachii and triceps brachii muscles in response to magnetic stimulation of the motor cortex (MEP) and corticospinal tract (cervic...

Alternate muscle activity between synergist muscles has been demonstrated during low-level sustained contractions [< or =5% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) force]. To determine the functional significance of the alternate muscle activity, the association between the frequency of alternate muscle activity during a low-level sustained knee extension and the reduction in knee extension MVC ...

Mean maximal motor unit firing rates (MUFRs) of the human soleus are lower (5-20 Hz) than other limb muscles (20-50 Hz) during brief sustained contractions. With healthy adult aging, maximal MUFRs are 20-40% lower and twitch contractile speed of lower limb muscles are 10-40% slower compared with young adults. However, it is unknown whether the inherently low maximal MUFRs for the soleus are fur...

the purpose of the present study was to investigate whether duration of static stretching could affect the maximal voluntary contraction (mvc) and flexibility of hamstring muscles. 10 male physical education students randomly performed three warm-up protocols on different days. the protocols included: a) five minutes of treadmill run and 45 seconds (3×15 seconds) of static stretching of hamstri...

Previous studies suggested that activity-dependent conduction block (CB) contributes to weakness in multifocal motor neuropathy (MMN). Obtaining more robust evidence for activity-dependent CB is important because it may be a novel target for treatment strategies. We performed nerve conduction studies in 22 nerve segments of 19 MMN patients, before and immediately after 60 seconds of maximal vol...

We have previously shown that unloaded shortening velocity (V(0)) of human plantar flexors can be determined in vivo, by applying the "slack test" to submaximal voluntary contractions (J Physiol 567:1047-1056, 2005). In the present study, to investigate the effect of motor unit recruitment pattern on V(0) of human muscle, we modified the slack test and applied this method to both voluntary and ...