Award Date

5-1-2025

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Kinesiology and Nutrition Sciences

First Committee Member

John Mercer

Second Committee Member

Tedd Girouard

Third Committee Member

James Navalta

Fourth Committee Member

Keoni Kins

Number of Pages

32

Abstract

Blood flow restriction (BFR) is an emerging rehabilitation modality shown to enhance muscle activation and elicit strength gains comparable to high-intensity training at lower loads (Cognetti et al.,2019). Body weight support (BWS) treadmill walking is another modality that has gained popularity due to the effect it has on lowering muscle activation with increasing support levels (Jensen et al.,2016). However, to date no research has looked at electromyographic (EMG) activity utilizing both modalities concurrently. This study investigated if stride frequency (SF) and muscle activity of the rectus femoris (RF), biceps femoris (BF), tibialis anterior (TA) and gastrocnemius (GA) would be influenced by an interaction between BWS and BFR. Seven healthy participants (3 men and 4 women; age: 23.71 3.01yrs; height: 171.27 6.91 cm; body mass: 64.38 4.94 kg; body fat percentage: 18.76 5.44 %) completed four walking conditions at 0% & 50% BWS with and without 80% occlusion pressure of BFR at a self-selected speed. EMG activity was recorded for 30s during each condition. Results revealed that EMG activity was not influenced by an interaction between BWS and BFR for SF (P=.345), RF (P=.845), BF (P=.684), TA (P=.761) and GA (P=.129). Additionally, BFR alone did not influence EMG activity across muscles (SF (P=.161);RF (P=.639); BF (P=.684);TA (P=.479);GA (P=.404)), nor did BWS ( SF (P=.740); RF(P=.675); BF (P=.900); TA (P=.102), except for GA (P=.039). These finding suggest that BFR did not influence EMG activity regardless of BWS. Thus, suggesting that further research is needed to further explore the neuromuscular effects of BFR under varying levels of BWS and walking speeds.

Keywords

blood flow restriction; body weight support; electromyographic activity; self-selected speed

Disciplines

Kinesiology

File Format

pdf

File Size

738 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Download


Included in

Kinesiology Commons

Share

COinS