Abstract
The aim of the present study was to validate the notion that there is a normal profile for electromyographic (EMG) signals in gait. For eight subjects, surface electrodes were used to record signals over ten strides from the soleus, rectus femoris, biceps femoris, vastus medialis and tibialis anterior muscles. Analyses of EMG linear envelopes, normalised with respect to both time and amplitude, demonstrated that statistically significant differences exist in amplitude of activity across subjects for all muscles, and that within subjects the data were highly repeatable. More importantly, differences in profiles of activity were found especially for the rectus femoris muscle. It was also found that a given muscle from a given subject can present specific profiles, but usually these specificities are averaged out in the pooled between-subject data. Thus limits exist with the use or the notion of a normal profile of EMG for gait.
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Arsenault, A.B., Winter, D.A. & Marteniuk, R.G. Is there a ‘normal’ profile of EMG activity in gait?. Med. Biol. Eng. Comput. 24, 337–343 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02442685
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02442685