QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS ON THE MUSCULAR ACTIVITY OF LOWER EXTREMITY DURING WATER WALKING

Abstract

This study compared water walking (WW) with land walking (LW) in order to evaluate the muscular activities of the lower extremity. Nine young healthy subjects performed WW at voluntary slow, normal and fast speeds for 8 seconds with two repetitions. On the LW condition, subjects performed two trials at normal pace. Surface electromyography electrodes were placed on the tibialis anterior (TA), medial gastrocnemius (GAS), rectus femoris (RF) and biceps femoris (BF). As for WW, each muscular activity patterns at different speeds had moderate or high correlation with LW in cross correlation function (r = 0.53-0.90). The mean value of the muscular activity of GAS at slow speed condition during WW were lower than that of LW. At the fast speed condition, TA, RF and BF activities in WW were higher than that of LW. It was considered that WW was able to simulate LW at any levels of speeds and stimulate thigh muscles and TA sufficiently even in slow speed WW.