Effects of gravity and kinematic constraints on muscle synergies in arm cycling

Abstract

Recent studies analyzed muscle synergies in lower limb cycling. Here, we examine upper limb cycling and specifically the effect of body position with respect to gravity, movement size, and cranking mode on muscle coordination during arm cranking tasks. We show that altered body position and cranking mode affects modular organization of muscle activities. To our knowledge, this is the first study assessing motor control through muscle synergies framework during upper limb cycling with different constraints.