Muscle Contraction Lab Report

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The purpose of experiments 1 and 3 were to determine the relationship between the intensity of EMG activity of a muscle contraction in the dominant and non-dominant arm of the subject. As the consecutive squeezes were stronger, the both the absolute integral of EMG activity and muscle force increases. This is because there is a linear relationship between the absolute integral of force and EMG, however, this is only true when the muscles are activated isometerically (true for this experiment). There are many types of contractions, two main ones are: when the muscle length changes (isotonic), and when it stays the same (isometric). The force produced by muscles depend on its length, velocity of movement and frequency, and when a contraction …show more content…

The refractory period of muscle fibers are 1-2 milliseconds (Sherwood et al., 2016). The short refractory period allows contractions to reach tetanus, which is caused by the frequent stimulation of the muscle fibers (Silverthorn et al., 2013).
The increase in amplitude of the absolute integrals of EMG and muscle force as seen in table 1 and table 2 is caused by both the number of motor units recruited and the frequency of the contracting fiber. The lowest relative grip strength recruits less motor units, but as the strength increases, more motor units are recruited, and because the muscle fibers are constantly being restimulated, the muscle force is able to reach tetanus for a period of time (seen in figure 1.0 and 1.1) for each relative strength.
Comparing the results from table 1 and 2, and figure 1.1 and 1.2, the dominant forearm is slightly stronger than the non-dominant forearm. The percent difference in the maximum grip strength is 11%. The stronger forearm has a higher ratio of average maximum grip strength compared to the area of the EMG absolute integral than the weaker forearm. The percent difference between in the slope of the force-EMG graphs is also

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