The effects of superimpose electrical stimulation technique on physical functions of healthy quadriceps femoris muscle

Abstract

Superimpose (SE) technique is an application of an electrical stimulation during a voluntary muscle contraction. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of superimpose training on Quadriseps Femoris (QF) muscle function including strength, and functional performance and to compare the effectiveness of SE technique with resistive training or electrical stimulation (ES) on QF muscle function in untrained healthy young adults.
Forty-eight untrained healthy subjects with mean age of 22.43±1.12 (range 21-26) years aged participated in this study. Of the 52.1% sample was men. The subjects were divided into three training groups as; resistive exercises group (REG) (n=17), electrical stimulation group (ESG) (n=15) and superimpose training group (SIG) (n=16). Training was carried out on dominant side leg of the subjects 3 sessions per week for 6 weeks. The subjects were assessed at before and after training period. QF muscle strength were assessed by 1 max repetitions test, hand hold dynamometer, and functional performance were assessed by one leg hop, triple hop, vertical jump tests.
After training, both muscle strength tests, and all functional tests were positively changed in all three training groups (p<0.05). When we compared the training groups, there were no differences regarding outcome variables between groups (p>0.05).The results indicate that training techniques including superimpose, electrical stimulation and resistance training had positive effects on QF muscle strength and function (p<0.05), but there is no superiority on each others (p>0.05).

Key words:

knee joints, quadriceps femoris, training, superimpose, strength.