Acute Effect of Resistance Exercise, Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation, and Transcutaneous Electrical Stimulation Applications on Muscle Activation

The aim of our study is to investigate the effects of single-session resistance exercise, neuromuscular electrical stimulation, and transcutaneous electrical stimulation on the level of muscle activation and their superiority over each other on both the ipsilateral and contralateral sides. Our randomized controlled crossover study included 21 participants (13 female, 8 male, age; 27.7±4). Transcutaneous electrical stimulation was used for sensory input. A single-session application was performed only to the right extremities of all participants, and the acute effects on muscle activation on both the ipsilateral and contralateral sides were evaluated. Muscle activation was evaluated with superficial EMG. SPSS® Statistics V22.0 software was used for statistical analysis. As a result of the statistical analysis, a significant increase in activation was found only in the sensory input application group on the ipsilateral side flexor carpi radialis (FCR) (p=0.001), flexor carpi ulnaris (FCU) (p<0.001), flexor digitorum superficialis (FDS) (p=0.023) and flexor digitorum profundus (FDP) (p=0.003) muscles. On the contralateral side, there was an increase in activation in all muscles (FCR; p<0.001, FCU; p=0.033, FDS; p=0.017 and FDP; p=0.001) in the resistant exercise group. In addition, there was a significant increase in the activation of certain muscles on the contralateral side in the NMES application group (FCR (p=0.049) and FDP (p=0.016) muscles) and the sensory input application group (FDP (p=0.004) and FDS (p=0.043) muscles). In situations where movement is contraindicated, ipsilateral sensory input can increase the level of muscle activation through both cortical and peripheral neural mechanisms.In addition, resistance exercise to be performed on the contralateral side can be an effective application to increase muscle activation on the ipsilateral side.