Movement, posture and equilibrium: interaction and coordination

Core stability and core strength have been subject to research since the early 1980s. Research has highlighted benefits of training these processes for people with back pain and for carrying out everyday activities. However, less research has been performed on the benefits of core training for elite athletes and how this training should be carried out to optimize sporting performance. Many elite athletes undertake core stability and core strength training as part of their training programme, despite contradictory findings and conclusions as to their efficacy. This is mainly due to the lack of a gold standard method for measuring core stability and strength when performing everyday tasks and sporting movements. A further confounding factor is that because of the differing demands on the core musculature during everyday activities (low load, slow movements) and sporting activities (high load, resisted, dynamic movements), research performed in the rehabilitation sector cannot be applied to the sporting environment and, subsequently, data regarding core training programmes and their effectiveness on sporting performance are lacking. There are many articles in the literature that promote core training programmes and exercises for performance enhancement without providing a strong scientific rationale of their effectiveness, especially in the sporting sector. In the rehabilitation sector, improvements in lower back injuries have been reported by improving core stability. Few studies have observed any performance enhancement in sporting activities despite observing improvements in core stability and core strength following a core training programme. A clearer understanding of the roles that specific muscles have during core stability and core strength exercises would enable more functional training programmes to be implemented, which may result in a more effective transfer of these skills to actual sporting activities.

Optimizing performance by improving core stability and core strength

Healthy subjects performed bilateral fast shoulder movements in different directions while standing on a force platform. Anticipatory postural adjustments were seen as changes in the electrical activity of postural muscles as well as displacements of the center of pressure and center of gravity. Postural muscle pairs of agonist-antagonist commonly demonstrated triphasic patterns starting prior to the first electromyographic (EMG) burst in the prime-mover muscle. Proximal postural muscles demonstrated the largest anticipatory increase in the background activity during movements in one of the two opposite directions (forward or backwards). These changes progressively decreased when movements deviated from the preferred direction and frequently disappeared during movements in the opposite direction. The patterns in distal muscles varied across subjects and could demonstrate larger anticipatory changes during movements forward and backwards as compared to movements in intermediate directions. Bilateral addition of inertial loads to the wrists did not change the general anticipatory patterns, while making some of their features more pronounced. Anticipatory postural adjustments were followed by later changes in the activity of postural muscles, also reflected in the mechanical variables. Changes in leg joint angles revealed a „hip-ankle strategy” during shoulder flexions and an „ankle strategy” during shoulder extensions. The study demonstrates different behaviors of proximal and distal muscles during anticipatory postural adjustments in preparation for fast arm movements. We suggest that the proximal muscles produce a general pattern of postural adjustments, while distal muscles take care of fine adjustments that are more likely to vary across subjects.

Directional specificity of postural muscles in feed-forward postural reactions during fast voluntary arm movements

Is there a role for transversus abdominis in lumbo-pelvic stability?

Redundancy of the motor control system is an important feature that gives the central control structures options for solving everyday motor problems. The choice of particular control patterns is based on priorities (coordinative rules) that are presently unknown. Motor patterns observed in unimpaired young adults reflect these priorities. We hypothesize that under certain atypical conditions, which may include disorders in perception of the environment and in decision making, structural or biochemical changes within the central nervous system (CNS), and/or structural changes of the effectors, the central nervous system may reconsider its priorities. A new set of priorities will reflect the current state of the system and may lead to different patterns of voluntary movement. Under such conditions, changed motor patterns should be considered not pathological but rather adaptive to a primary disorder and may even be viewed as optimal for a given state of the system of movement production. Therapeutic approaches should not be directed toward restoring the motor patterns to as close to “normal” as possible but rather toward resolving the original underlying problem. We illustrate this approach using, as examples, movements in amputees, in patients with Parkinson's disease, in patients with dystonia, and in persons with Down syndrome.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/46DFEE4D0CB650919D8D9B80C22E0981/S0140525X00041467a.pdf/div-class-title-what-are-normal-movements-in-atypical-populations-div.pdf

What are “normal movements” in atypical populations?

That postural reactions are associated with voluntary movement has probably been known in the medical field at least since Babinski’s observations (1899). Since that time, many kinesiologic studies have been carried out with the aim of describing the muscular patterns which underlay maintenance of a given posture, slow changes in posture, and movements performed at a significant speed. They have included segmental movements performed on a stable underpropping area, as well as gross movement involving body progression, such as gait. It has been observed that postural muscular activities can precede, accompany, and also follow intentional movement.

Segmental Movement as a Perturbation to Balance? Facts and Concepts

Rapid arm movements generate balance perturbations, which are anticipated and counteracted by postural adjustments. The effect of lateral preference on the control of the postural preparation to maximal velocity upper-limb pointing movements was investigated in right-handers. The muscular activities characterizing the postural adjustments were compared for preferred and non-preferred upper-limb movements. Movements were performed in two sitting conditions differing by their stability ("full on seat" and "edge of seat"). The electromyographic activity of the arm-movement prime mover and of several trunk and hip muscles involved in postural control was recorded with surface electrodes. Results indicate the presence of a reproducible pattern of anticipatory postural adjustments (APAs) involving trunk and hip muscles preceding the activation of the prime mover. In the "full on seat" condition, APAs started earlier and movement velocity was higher for preferred than for non-preferred arm movements. In the "edge of seat" condition, maximal velocity of movement did not differ significantly between both sides, but a higher excitation level of postural muscles was required to achieve this similar performance when the non-preferred upper limb was used. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that handedness involves differences in the postural control associated with upper-limb movements, in other words that lateral preference is associated with a postural laterality.

Anticipatory EMG patterns associated with preferred and non-preferred arm pointing movements.

Does postural muscular activity associated with a pointing task depend on handedness

Reduction of postural base configuration lessens the velocity of upper limb movements performed in standing posture

A nticipatory po s t ur a1 ad j us tmen t s (APA) associated with intentional movement were studied in relation to dynamic asymmetry, a factor which characterizes the perturbing effect of movement on body equilibrium. Simultaneously, local movements were studied by electromography and accelerometry, and general body movements by the means of a force plate. The results showed that APA were specific to dynamic asymmetry in healthy subjects: they are "preprogrammed" and it can be assumed that they constitute a part of the motor program. The biomechanical finality of APA was argued o'n the b asis of a simple b iomechanical analysis. R esults obtained in Paraplegic and Parkinsonian patients were reported and discussed with respect to the theory which was proposed.

POSTUML REACTIONS ASSOCIATED WIM 1"rIOFAL SE@ENT!L MovDmS

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Maurice Zattara

Author Tools

Chat about Author