Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 8, 2025

Muscle Imbalances: Testing and Training Functional Eccentric Hamstring Strength in Athletic Populations
Published on: May 1, 2018
Synergy in motion: Exploring the similarity and variability of muscle synergy patterns in healthy individuals
Luying Feng1, Linfan Yu1, Hui Lyu2
1Ningbo Innovation Center, Zhejiang University, Ningbo, China; College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Background:
Recent studies suggest that muscle synergy patterns can be a guide for diagnosis and rehabilitation.
Research Question:
Does human's lower limb synergy pattern significantly change with changes in walking speed? Are there large differences in synergy patterns among different healthy individuals?
Methods:
22 healthy subjects from an open-source datasets were included. Non-negative matrix factorization was applied to identify the module composition of surface electromyography(sEMG) data, and the similarity index was adopted to quantify the overall similarity between synergy patterns.
Results:
Results demonstrated that healthy individuals have their own intrinsic muscle recruitment and coordination characteristics for locomotion at various speeds, additionally, their synergy patterns exhibit predictability under speed variations.
Significance:
This study develop reference synergy patterns for the lower limbs across 28 different walking speeds. The developed synergy patterns and the above findings may guide the study of gait synergy in rehabilitation and assistance.
Related Concept Videos
Muscle Stimulation Frequency
Wave summation
At low firing rates, motor neurons induce individual twitch contractions in muscle fibers. These twitches...
Muscle Coordination and Action
Agonists
Agonist muscles, often called prime movers, are the primary muscles responsible for producing a specific movement....
Exercise and Muscle Performance
Endurance exercises
Endurance exercises involve running, swimming, or cycling, which require repetitive movements with low force output. When a person engages in endurance exercise, a few noticeable changes occur in their skeletal muscles. For instance, the number of capillaries...
Overview of Skeletal Muscle
Motor Unit Stimulation
The latent period of contraction marks the onset of excitation-contraction coupling, when the action potential propagates across the sarcolemma, preparing the muscle fibers for contraction. As the fibers enter the contraction phase, the...
Isotonic and Isometric Muscle Contractions
Isotonic contractions
Isotonic contractions occur when a muscle changes length while...

