McArdle, Katch I & Katch L, define fatigue as the inability to maintain submaximal or maximal force output as a result of sustained muscle activity within a given period of time (2010). The onset of fatigue is related to four major components: change in central nervous system chemical composition, reduction in fuel and nutrients content supply to muscle tissue, decreased pH as a result of accumulating metabolites and disruption of muscle action potentials (MAP) within the neuromuscular junction (McArdle et al.). For this study, neural factors of fatigue will be the focus as they result in the fluctuating EMG amplitudes observed throughout this experiment.
Research investigating the EMG-fatigue relationship give professionals at the forefront of exercise physiology useful tools to further understand muscular fatigue during exercise. The purpose of this investigation was to identify the effects of fatigue—as a result of submaximal and maximal handgrip contractions—on EMG amplitude. It is hypothesized that EMG amplitude will increase with increasing force production and decrease as fatigue occurs during maximal and submaximal handgrip …show more content…
Each 60 second trial block was selected and added to Data Pad from LabChart. In Data Pad the data was placed into five second bins: 5-10 seconds, 15-20 seconds, 25-30 seconds, 35-40 seconds, 45-50 seconds and 55-60 seconds. In order to verify the data, EMG amplitude was checked to verify if it was increasing with each interval of submaximal or maximal intensity. After verifying data was obtained correctly, it was exported into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for processing and the procedure was repeated for each of the subsequent