Activation of human arm muscles during flexion/extension and supination/pronation tasks: A theory on muscle coordination

Generally the number of muscles acting across a joint exceeds the number of degrees of freedom available to the joint. This redundancy raises a problem regarding the ratio in which these muscles are activated during a particular motor task. In this paper we present a theory to explain the activation patterns of muscles used during voluntary and reflex induced contractions. The basic assumptions underlying the theory are that 1) coordination of muscles is based on synergistic muscle activities, 2) the synergisms involved satisfy certain transformations of muscle spindle signals to muscle activation signals and 3) muscle spindle output is proportional to the ratio of muscle stretch and muscle length in lengthening muscles, and is zero in shortening muscles. The theory is used to predict the recruitment threshold of motor units in six arm muscles during voluntary isometric contractions. All theoretical predictions are in reasonable agreement with the experimentally observed behavior of a large population of motor units within each muscle. However, within a single muscle sometimes motor-unit populations have been found to have different types of recruitment behavior. This deviating behavior is discussed in the light of the theory presented here.