IADMS New York 2002   [back to the Category]

The Changes of EMG Activity with Fatigue During Heel-Rise Test in Japanese Female Dance Students   [read the french version]

Author :   Misaki Yoshida, MA, & Al. Tokyo, Japan

The Changes of EMG Activity with Fatigue During
Heel-Rise Test in Japanese Female Dance Students


Misaki Yoshida, MA; Mayumi Kuno-Mizumura, PhD
Department of Performing Arts, Faculty of Literature and Education
Ochanomizu University
Tokyo, Japan


The purpose of the present study was to investigate the EMG activity of triceps surae muscles with fatigue in Japanese female dance students during the heel-rise test. Six Japanese female dance students with a mean age of 19.8±1.0 years (mean ± SD) and seven female students who have no experience of dance with a mean age of 20.0±1.6 years participated as the subjects in this study. All subjects performed the heel-rise test on right leg until exhaustion. During the heel-rise test, electromyographic (EMG) activity was recorded from medial head of gastrocnemius, lateral head of gastrocnemius, soleus, and tibialis anterior muscles by using surface electrodes. There was no significant difference in the mean number of heel-rises between dance students (34.5±16.7 times) and the non-dance students (33.0±10.7 times).

Dance student showed significantly greater range of motion in each heel-rise comparing to the non-dance students. This indicated that the dance students had greater total work by the muscle for each heel-rise than the non-dance students did. During the concentric phase, integrated EMG (iEMG) of all muscles increased significantly during the heel-rise test. In the non-dance students, soleus iEMG increased successively and mean power frequency (MPF) of soleus decreased with the number of heel-rises. While, for the dance students, soleus iEMG did not increase significantly until 70% of total number of heel-rises and there was no significant change in soleus MPF throughout the test.

These results indicated that the soleus which was mainly composed by the type1fibers became more fatigue-resistant in the dance students. It was suggested that the significant differences between the dance students and the non-dance students in EMG activity of triceps surae muscles during heel-rise test might be attributed by the characteristics of dance movements/training.