Muscle Module Composition in Competitive Athletes
Additional Funding Sources
The project described was supported by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation through a Beckman Scholars Program award to the University of Idaho.
Abstract
What inherent quality allows athletes to run at high speeds? This study seeks to examine the neuromotor control patterns that underlie sprinting by elite athletes. Muscle synergies, the activation of a group of muscles that contribute to a particular movement, can provide insight into possible neuromotor control mechanisms used by the nervous system to simplify the coordination of movement tasks. Because of their innate coordination and world-class ability, three competitive, Olympic-level athletes were analyzed. Electromyography (EMG) data were collected on eight target muscles of the athlete's thigh and leg to detect what, if any, muscle synergies exist during sprinting trials of a 40-meter fly. Non-negative matrix factorization (NNMF) was used to compose basic motor patterns, motor modules, that represent neural pathways for muscles recruited during locomotion. We expected to see robust, highly repeatable modules in elite athletes due to the nature of their training, thus allowing them to run at faster speeds. Three modules were sufficient to account for the variability of muscle activation while sprinting, suggesting that the neuromotor system uses a relatively simple control pattern to activate functional groups of muscles simultaneously. The outcomes of this research provides a foundation for quantifying differences between competitive and recreational athletes.
Muscle Module Composition in Competitive Athletes
What inherent quality allows athletes to run at high speeds? This study seeks to examine the neuromotor control patterns that underlie sprinting by elite athletes. Muscle synergies, the activation of a group of muscles that contribute to a particular movement, can provide insight into possible neuromotor control mechanisms used by the nervous system to simplify the coordination of movement tasks. Because of their innate coordination and world-class ability, three competitive, Olympic-level athletes were analyzed. Electromyography (EMG) data were collected on eight target muscles of the athlete's thigh and leg to detect what, if any, muscle synergies exist during sprinting trials of a 40-meter fly. Non-negative matrix factorization (NNMF) was used to compose basic motor patterns, motor modules, that represent neural pathways for muscles recruited during locomotion. We expected to see robust, highly repeatable modules in elite athletes due to the nature of their training, thus allowing them to run at faster speeds. Three modules were sufficient to account for the variability of muscle activation while sprinting, suggesting that the neuromotor system uses a relatively simple control pattern to activate functional groups of muscles simultaneously. The outcomes of this research provides a foundation for quantifying differences between competitive and recreational athletes.