Study of the muscular force/HOS parameters relationship from the surface electromyogram

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to investigate a possible relationship between High Order Statistic (HOS) parameters and muscle force. In fact, it is guessed that Motor Unit (MU) recruitment during contraction has an influence on surface EMG (sEMG) amplitude distribution shape. For this purpose, skewness and kurtosis are used to monitor variation of monopolar sEMG data according to contraction level. First, a simulation was performed to evaluate the sensitivity of both proposed parameters to physiological and instrumental parameters. Then, 3 healthy young males took part to an experimental protocol on the biceps brachii muscle. The sEMG and force data were recorded and analyzed for different voluntary contraction levels. According to the results obtained, a relationship between HOS parameters and muscle force appears to exist. However, HOS parameters are sensitive to the tested parameters. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.