Comparison of tibialis anterior and gastrocnemius muscles activation on balance training devices and hoverboard

Abstract

Balance training devices such as wobble board, basu ball and balance cushion are the tool use in balance training exercise programme in order to improve muscle strength and restore posture balance due degeneration of body function or injury. Recently, self-balancing scooter such as Segway and hover board showed a positive effects on rehabilitation. However, it is less known how these devices affect muscle physiological properties. This study aims to to measure ankle muscles activation on difference balance training devices and hover board. Besides, a comparison between these device will be done in order to identify if hover board has a promising feature to be an alternative balance training device. In this research, surface EMG (sEMG) was used to record tibialis anterior and gastrocnemius muscle activities. Seventeen healthy subjects were required to stand on three different types of balance training device such as wobble board, balance cushion, bosu ball and a hover board. They were asked to maintain their standing position on each devices for two minutes. Both time domain and frequency domain analysis were used to identify the features of the EMG signal. Time domain analysis measurement involved average rectified value (ARV) and root mean square (RMS), meanwhile for frequency domain, median frequency (MDF) of the signal were measured. The results shows that, the RMS is differed significantly between the balance training devices (p<0.05) for tibialis anterior muscle but not gastrocnemius muscle. Meanwhile, no significant difference between the devices in the ARV and the MDF value (p>0.05). Besides, less stable devices increased muscle activity were observed. There is not much difference between hover board and the other devices in term of physiological effects of both tibialis anterior and gastrochemious muscle. It is also suggested that hover board offers a promising feature to be an alternative device for balance training device.