Peculiarities of serratus anterior muscle’s electrical activity during different push up exercise variations

Abstract

Introduction. The serratus anterior muscle is one of the most important muscle responsible for scapular stabilization (1,2). One of the most studied exercise for the strengthening of scapular stabilizer muscles is a push-up exercise (2,3,4). Push up exercise "plus phase" is considered as one of the best exercise to strengthen those muscles (5). The strengthening of scapular stabilizers could be the one of conservative treatment‘s component, so it is important to know what exercise is appropriate for this muscle (1). Research aim. To evaluate the peculiarities of serratus anterior muscle‘s electrical activity during different push up exercise variations. Research methods and organization. A total of 31 healthy subjects volunteered for the study (15 men and 15 women). The average age of the participants was 23.3 years. Electromyography (EMG) method was used in this research to determine serratus anterior muscle electric activation during different surface push up exercise variations depending on the exercise phase. All volunteers performed four varations of push-up exercise (knee push up, knee push up with ball, wall push up and wall push up with ball). Push up exersice consists of three phases - the “down position” (scapular retraction) , “up position” (scapular protraction) and “plus position“ (maximal protraction). Before exercise, maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) was measured. Results of muscle electrical activity were expressed as a percentage of the maximal voluntary muscle contraction (%). SPSS 21.0 for Windows and Microsoft Office Excel 2010 were used for data analysis. The data are presented as the mean value and standard deviation (SD). Statistical significance was accepted for values of p<0.05. Independent variables were compared with nonparametric Mann-Whitney (U) test.Results. Electrical activity of serratus anterior muscle was analyzed in accordance with different varia[...].