A Pilot Study: Evaluations of Compression Garment Performance via Muscle Activation Tests

AbstractSports compression apparel consists of elastic textile that exerts pressure onto muscles. It is common for sportswear which consists of elastic textile that exerts pressure onto muscles to improve athletic performance and reduce sports injury. Since muscle activation is very sensitive to external conditions, the differences associated with muscle activations can be detected during running with or without wearing compression garments. This pilot study explored the effects of muscle activation with and without sport compression garments during running. In order to standardize the running process, the mean normalized running velocity was around 5-7 m/s. Surface electrodes were applied to the subjects’ skin on major muscles of lower limbs. EMG signal was synchronized with video recording and collected from subjects during treadmill running. The EMG signal was processed by a proposed method to represent the muscle activation. The muscle activation for the major muscles of Rectus Femoris (RF) and Gastrocnemius (GN) revealed a higher muscle activation is being exerted without wearing a compression garment. With limited scientific work in the field of EMG analysis and sports compression garments, further research should explore pathways which enable a better understanding of the correlations that may exist between EMG activity, garment compression and performance