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Comparing the Muscles Activity during Walking, Pedaling, Frog Kicking and Elliptical Training in Healthy and PFPS Men

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Sports Biomechanics, faculty of Physical Education and Sports Science, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Sports Biomechanics, Faculty of Physical Education, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

10.22089/jehs.2023.12875.1046

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to compare the peak of muscles activity during training with treadmill, stationary bicycle, breaststroke stimulation machine, and elliptical in the forward and backward direction in healthy and patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) men.
Methods: Twenty-four participants were randomly assigned into the two groups (12 healthy 24.8 ± 2.6 years old and 12 PFPS 23.5 ± 2.4 years old). An electromyography (EMG) device was used to record lower body muscles activities during training with treadmill, ergometer, frog kick machine, and elliptical in the forward and backward direction. The Mixed ANOVA and Bonferroni Test were used to evaluate the effect of each training on the selected muscles. To determine the correlation between tibial tubercle deviation (TTD) and visual analog scaling (VAS), the Pearson correlation coefficient was used.
Results: The MVIC% peak values of Vastus Medialis Oblique (VMO), Gluteus Maximus (GL-Max) were low and Rectus Femoris (RF) and Vastus Lateralis (VL) were significantly high in the PFPS group (P <0.05). The MVIC% peak values of VMO muscle in backward elliptical (BW-Ell) were higher than other exercises (P <0.05). The Pearson test shows a positive correlation between VAS and TTD (r = 0.76).
Conclusion: According to the results of the PFPS group, in most of the tasks, the activity of the Gl-Max and VMO muscles was low and the activity of the RF and VL muscles was more than the healthy group. Since in the reverse elliptical exercise, the VMO/VL was more than other tasks, it was perhaps because of the strengthening of the Gl-Max muscle and BW-Ell training, which is suitable for PFPS. In addition, it may be possible to quantify the severity of PFPS with the help of TTD measurement.

Keywords

References
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Journal of Exercise and Health Science
Volume 2, Issue 1
January 2022
Pages 53-76
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