Electromyography Study of Muscle Pre and Post Warm-Up

Abstract

Athletic performance and prevention of injury plays a key role in today’s sporting events, with the “warming-up” of muscular tissues a primary objective. The study aims to more broadly include the effects of warming up to not just the muscle’s output in performance, but also the nervous system’s input to the muscle. While the subject of warm-up on muscular tissue is well documented, the effects of the activities on the nervous system are not, and our work will be adding to a field with little research. The goal of the project is to identify the primary effect of a whole body warm up on a specific muscle group (triceps) via EMG. This research could provide an increased knowledge of to what extent a “warm-up routine” affects the body as well as its ability to function. Moreover, it could provide insight into the types of routines done across different sports or for the length of time they are executed. The p-values for the integral and maximum muscle activity were 0.1156 and 0.787, respectively. These values were not found to be statistically significant, suggesting that the warm-up did not have an effect on muscle activity.