The influence of biofeedback on exercise correctness and muscle activity

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of an electromyography (EMG) biofeedback fitness application, and its potential to improve resistance training and exercise execution using the measure of muscle activity. To examine this, an application was built and tested using biceps curl as the reference exercise. The participants were divided into three conditions: the first condition did not receive any feedback, the second condition received feedback from a personal trainer, and the last used the feedback presented by the application. The focus is to investigate the participant’s ability to activate muscle fibres in the biceps, and improve the execution in regards to minimising the shoulder involvement over three sets. The results of the study do not provide any statistically significant improvements using biofeedback versus no feedback. However, the participants with the applicational support, as well as the participants within the personal trainer condition, show a slight improvement on the visual correctness of the exercise execution. The lack of statistically significance, important observations and indications are discussed.