Influence of the Amount of Instability on the Leg Muscle Activity During a Loaded Free Barbell Half-Squat

Bernat Buscà, Joan Aguilera-Castells, Jordi Arboix-Alió, Adrià Miró, Azahara Fort-Vanmeerhaeghe and Javier Peña
Additional contact information
Bernat Buscà: Faculty of Psychology, Education Sciences and Sport Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University, 08022 Barcelona, Spain
Joan Aguilera-Castells: Faculty of Psychology, Education Sciences and Sport Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University, 08022 Barcelona, Spain
Jordi Arboix-Alió: Faculty of Psychology, Education Sciences and Sport Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University, 08022 Barcelona, Spain
Adrià Miró: Faculty of Psychology, Education Sciences and Sport Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University, 08022 Barcelona, Spain
Azahara Fort-Vanmeerhaeghe: Faculty of Psychology, Education Sciences and Sport Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University, 08022 Barcelona, Spain
Javier Peña: Sport and Physical Activity Studies Centre (CEEAF), University of Vic–Central University of Catalonia, 08500 Vic, Spain

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-15

Abstract: This study aimed to understand the acute responses on the muscular activity of primary movers during the execution of a half-squat under different unstable devices. Fourteen male and female high-standard track and field athletes were voluntarily recruited. A repeated measures design was used to establish the differences between muscle activity of the primary movers, the body centre of mass acceleration and the OMNI-Perceived Exertion Scale for Resistance Exercise (OMNI-Res) in a half-squat under four different stability conditions (floor, foam, BOSU-up and BOSU-down). A significant correlation was found between the highest performance limb muscle activity and body centre of mass acceleration for half-squat floor (r = 0.446, p = 0.003), foam (r = 0.322, p = 0.038), BOSU-up (r = 0.500, p = 0.001), and BOSU-down (r = 0.495, p = 0.001) exercises. For the exercise condition, the half-squat BOSU-up and BOSU-down significantly increased the muscle activity compared to half-squat floor (vastus medialis: p = 0.020, d = 0.56; vastus lateralis: p = 0.006, d = 0.75; biceps femoris: p = 0.000–0.006, d = 1.23–1.00) and half-squat foam (vastus medialis: p = 0.005–0.006, d = 0.60–1.00; vastus lateralis: p = 0.014, d = 0.67; biceps femoris: p = 0.002, d = 1.00) activities. This study contributes to improving the understanding of instability training, providing data about the acute muscular responses that an athlete experiences under varied stability conditions. The perturbation offered by the two BOSU conditions was revealed as the most demanding for the sample of athletes, followed by foam and floor executions.

Keywords: unstable; perturbation; electromyography; squatting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/8046/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/8046/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:21:p:8046-:d:438457

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().