Lower-Limb Electromyography Signal Analysis for the Bottom Group of Muscles Fitness Norm before and after Intensive Exercise

• Published in: Electronics (Basel) 2021-10, Vol.10 (20), p.2458
• Main Authors: Chen, Ching-Kun, Lin, Shyan-Lung, Wang, Tasi-Chu, Huang, Yang-Si, Wu, Chieh-Liang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 20th century; Electromyography; Exercise; Exercise physiology; Experiments; Force plates; Frequency analysis; Frequency domain analysis; Muscle fatigue; Muscle strength; Norms; Physical fitness; Signal analysis; Time measurement
• ISSN: 2079-9292; 2079-9292
• DOI: 10.3390/electronics10202458

Muscular fitness is not only the ability of the body to adapt to work and the environment but also the operational ability of physical behavior. We speculated whether research could be conducted on the theory of muscular fitness and its qualitative/quantitative relationship based on muscular fitness and exercise physiology from the perspective of muscular endurance and muscular exploration. This study used standing long jumps as a standard metric for physical fitness to identify the bottom 20% groups. The experiment involved eight freshmen from the bottom 20% groups, and the pre-tests of the participants’ electromyography (EMG) signals under different exercise intensities were measured and after performing a set of intensive exercises for post-tests. The signal’ characteristics measured in time and frequency domains were analyzed to find the correlation between them and the participants’ muscular fitness. Weighted squats were chosen as the strength movements, which were separated into an exercise experiment and a force plate experiment. Both experiments included three different exercise intensities: 8 repetition maximum (RM), 18RM, and 28RM. The EMG signals were captured and analyzed in both time and the frequency domains. Finally, paired sample tests were performed to determine the difference of features under different exercise intensities. The comparison of readings before and after intensive exercises shows that, for the exercised experiment, a significant difference in the mean absolute (MAV), the variance of EMG (VAR), the root mean square value (RMS), and the average amplitude of change (AAC) was observed under 8RM. Under 18RM, MAV, VAR, and AAC showed a significant difference. In the force plate experiment, RMS, AAC, mean frequency (MNF), and median frequency (MDF) showed a statistically significant difference under the intensity of 18RM. As for intensity under 28RM, MAV, VAR, RMS, and AAC also showed significant difference.