Effect of the abdominal bracing maneuver on muscle activity pattern during prone hip extension Print

Prone hip extension (PHE) is a commonly used test to investigate the extensor activation pattern in the lumbo-pelvic area. It has been belived that performing abdominal stabilization maneuvers during PHE may change the pattern of lumbo-pelvic muscles activity. No study has yet assessed the muscular activation pattern during PHE with and without abdominal bracing (AB) to activate all antero-lateral abdominal wall muscles. A total of 10 asymptomatic women with no history of low back pain participated in the study. The EMG signal amplitude was recorded from bilateral erector spinae (ES) and the dominant side of gluteus maximus (GM) and bicepsfemoris (BF) muscles during PHE with and without performing AB maneuvers and was normalized to maximum voluntary electrical activity (MVE) of each muscle. Data were analyzed using dependent t test. Although there was significant decrease in EMG signal amplitude of the ipsilateral ES during PHE with AB (p=0.01), it was not significant in cotrolateral ES. There was no significant difference in EMG activity of the GM or BF muscles between PHE with and without abdominal maneuver. The results of this study indicate that performing AB during PHE could be used as an effective method to reduce over activity of the ES muscles.