Abstract
The Monopodal Squat, Forward Lunge and Lateral Step-Up exercises are commonly performed with one's own body weight for rehabilitation purposes. However, muscle activity evaluated using surface electromyography has never been analyzed among these three exercises. Therefore, the objectives of the present study were to evaluate the amplitude of the EMG activity of the gluteus medius, gluteus maximus, biceps femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis and rectus femoris muscles in participants performing the Lateral Step-Up, Forward Lunge and Monopodal Squat exercises. A total of 20 physically active participants (10 men and 10 women) performed 5 repetitions at 60% (5 repetition maximum) in each of the evaluated exercises. The EMG amplitude was calculated in percentage of the maximum voluntary contraction. The Monopodal Squat exercise showed a higher EMG activity (p ≤ 0.001) in relation to the Lateral Step-Up and Forward Lunge exercises in all of the evaluated muscles (d > 0.6) except for the rectus femoris. The three exercises showed significantly higher EMG activity in all of the muscles that were evaluated in the concentric phase in relation to the eccentric one. In the three evaluated exercises, vastus lateralis and vastus medialis showed the highest EMG activity, followed by gluteus medius and gluteus maximus. The Monopodal Squat, Forward Lunge and Lateral Step-Up exercises not only are recommended for their rehabilitation purposes but also should be recommended for performance objectives and strength improvement in the lower limbs.
Highlights
EMG activity in the Monopodal Squat, Forward Lunge and Lateral Step-Up exercises being of great importance for increasing athlete performance and in the prevention and recovery of possible injuries [3]
The inclusion criteria were a minimum of 6 months of experience in gym training and in performing the exercises that we evaluated in the present study; no musculoskeletal disease or injury in the six months prior to the evaluations, nor any discomfort that prevented or limited the participants in the execution of the exercises to be evaluated
Statistical analysis revealed that the main effect of exercise on EMG activity were significant with a medium effect size (F(4.86, 92.35) = 13.28, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.41)
Summary
EMG activity in the Monopodal Squat, Forward Lunge and Lateral Step-Up exercises being of great importance for increasing athlete performance and in the prevention and recovery of possible injuries [3]. In this sense, the Squat and Deadlift exercises and their variants, such as the Parallel Back Squat [4], Partial Back & Full Back Squat [5], Hexagonal Barbell and Straight Deadlift exercises [6], are commonly used in muscle conditioning as basic practices for lower-body strength training [7,8]. SEMG can determine which muscles are active, their degree of activity, and how active the muscle is compared to the subjects capacity [11] Based on these results, the best exercises may be selected according to the training objectives [12,13]
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