Study of muscle contraction through a temporal parameter of the myoelectric signal

Abstract

This work presents the analysis of muscular contraction based on a temporal parameter of the myoelectric signal. This parameter is the intervals between adjacent zero crossings of the signal. Since it is a kind of random variable, it is characterized by statistical properties derived from its histogram. In this paper the systematic way of obtaining such statistical properties was to fit a probability distribution function, the Weibull function, to the parameter histogram. The results of central tendency and dispersion of the fitted function were studied before and after a muscular training period in 4 different groups, separated by sex and for training conditions. These results point out that these statistical properties can contribute in the analysis of the muscular contraction.