Mechanical and electromyographic responses to stretch of the human anterior tibial muscle at different levels of contraction

Summary The EMG response and the mechanical response to 2 degree stretch of the human anterior tibial muscle was studied during contractions ranging from 0% to 80% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC). The EMG response showed three distinct peaks M1, M2, and M3 with peak latencies of 59 ms, 86 ms, and 120 ms respectively. At low background torques M1 dominated while M2 and M3 were small or absent. M2 and M3 dominated above 40% of MVC and M2 in particular showed automatic gain compensation, i.e. it constituted a — more or less — constant proportion of the background EMG for all contraction levels. The ratio between M1 amplitude and background EMG steadily decreased with contraction level. Even though the summed contributions of M1, M2, and M3 to some degree showed automatic gain compensation, this was not the case for the mechanical response to stretch. Between 0% and 30% of MVC the reflex mediated mechanical response increased approximately in proportion to the contraction level, but the reflex mediated mechanical response peaked at 40% of MVC and declined to zero at 80% of MVC. This discrepancy between EMG and mechanical response was explained by a simple model. The regression line between rectified and filtered tibialis anterior EMG and torque was used to predict the mechanical response from the EMG response. At increasing contraction levels the twitch elicited by supramaximal electrical stimulation decreases, and we reduced the predicted mechanical response by the same factor as the twitch. This simple model predicted the mechanical response for all contraction levels, making it possible to assess the functionality of reflexes even when accurate measurements of muscle force or intrinsic muscle properties are not possible.