Comparison of mean frequency and median frequency in evaluating muscle fiber type selection in varying gait speed across healthy young adult individuals

The preferential slow and fast twitches fiber involvement in varying gait speed has not been thoroughly investigated. Attempt to classify fiber type in changing speed should be closely investigated and scrutinized as the histochemical-related experiments are cumbersome and time consuming. In addressing this issue, electromyography (EMG) is utilized to extract the muscle fiber type features by altering the muscle fatigue indices, namely mean frequency (MNF) and median frequency (MDF). Recently, there are no universal indices to determine the muscle type. In this paper, the MNF and MDF are employed in discovering the muscle type variation as the speed changes. Besides drawing the potential of MNF and MDF in unveiling the muscle type, both the parameters are applied to investigate the muscles that are recruited and which muscle type are involved as the gait velocity changes. In this study, six healthy and young participants are recruited, whereby the EMG sensors are placed on twelve lower extremity muscles. The EMG signals are then processed via Matlab software to deduce MNF and MDF. The MNF and MDF are determined from every of the phase gait, namely stance and swing. From the results obtained, it reveals that the superiority of the MNF over the MDF in determining and interpreting the muscle recruitment in both gait phases as the speed increases. The MNF, moreover, is able to show an apparent difference in muscle type selection compared to MDF. Interestingly, it is discovered that as the speed increases from slow to fast, the MNF decreases, which indicates that more muscle fiber type I is recruited. Contrarily, the MNF increases as the speed intensity decreases, which indicates that the distribution of muscle type II is prominent.