Quantifying thigh muscle co-activation during isometric knee extension contractions: within- and between-session reliability

Abstract

Muscle co-activation around the knee is important during ambulation and balance. The wide range of methodological approaches for the quantification of co-activation index (CI) makes comparisons across studies and populations difficult. The present study determined within- and between-session reliability of different methodological approaches for the quantification of the CI of the knee extensor and flexor muscles during maximum voluntary isometric contractions (MVICs). Eight healthy volunteers participated in two repeated testing sessions. A series of knee extension MVICs of the dominant leg with concomitant torque and electromyographic (EMG) recordings were captured. CI was calculated utilizing different analytical approaches. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) showed that within-session measures displayed higher reliability (ICC>0.861) and lower variability (Coefficient of variation; CV<21.8%) than between-session measures (ICC<0.645; CV>24.2%). A selection of a 500ms or larger window of RMS EMG activity around the PT delivered more reliable and less variable results than other approaches. Our findings suggest that the CI can provide a reliable measure for comparisons among conditions and is best utilized for within-session experimental designs.

Keywords: Co-activation; Electromyography; Isometric; Knee; Reliability.

Figure 1

The top portion of the figure displays the normalized activation from one of the lateral hamstring muscle group. In this example, the Matlab algorithm calculated the RMS in a window of 500ms around the peak torque, which is one of the 7 analytical approaches utilized for the quantification of the CI.