RESEARCH ARTICLE


Electromyography in Front Crawl Technique - Case Study



A. Conceicao1, 2, A. Silva2, 4, *, S. Palma3, H. Silva3, H. Gamboa3, H. Louro1, 2
1 Sports Sciences School of Rio Maior, Polytechnic Institute of Santarém, Portugal
2 Research Center for Sport, Health and Human Development (CIDESD), UTAD, Vila Real, Portugal
3 PLUX - Wireless Biosignals, Lisboa Portugal
4 Department of C. of Sport, Exercise and Health of University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro; Vila Real, Portugal


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Creative Commons License
© 2010 Conceicao et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Sport Sciences, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal, Rua Dr. Manuel Cardona, 5000 Vila Real Portugal; Tel: +351 259350000; E-mail: Ajsilva@utad.pt


Abstract

The need to develop systems electromyographic (EMG) in the aquatic environment, has led several researchers to refine these instruments to ensure the credibility of the data provided by EMG. The aim of this study is to characterize the behavior of two muscle muscles involved in the crawl technique (biceps brachii and triceps brachii) over a test of 200m crawl.

1 male swimmer trained was subjected to a test consisting of a maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) of the Biceps Brachii (BB) and Triceps Brachii (TB) for standardization. A protocol of 4 x 50m with an interval of 15 seconds at a swimming speed of pre-established, making each part to 95% of transit time for 200m crawl. EMG surface electrodes were used with a Wirelless bioPLUX.research. The EMG signal of the BB and TB muscles of the right arm was removed throughout the test and then synchronized with the video image, and selected 5 cycles of swimming on all identical pathways.

There is a gradual decrease of its average muscle activity. The BB was about 43% and TB was 26%. The largest variation on it, in the case of BB, between the third and fourth route (21%), and in the case of TB, between the second and third route (14%).

The muscles studied demonstrated changes in the duration of swim cycles, indicating that, there is a decrease in muscle activity, this supposed to be due to limitations in production capacity under swimmer and the characteristics of the art of swimming which are changing as increasing fatigue.

Keywords: Electromyography, kinematics analysis, front crawl technique.