Muscle Mechanics and Electromyography

This chapter will begin with the introduction to biomechanics and its relationship with the physiology and anatomy. Then it introduces the basic concepts of kinematics, kinetics, and anthropometry and discusses in detail the muscle mechanics and electromyography. The muscle is the actuator of the human body, especially the skeletal muscles which are attached with the skeleton play an important role in defining the movements of the human body. The human body controls the muscle through the nervous system, and this nervous system generates signals called electroencephalogram (EEG) which upon leaving the nerves excites the muscle and converted into muscle signals usually called electromyogram (EMG). In this chapter, we will discuss the mechanics of the muscle in conjunction with the EMG. EMG is the tool to study the activity of the muscles and hence the key to understand the mechanics of the human body.