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In this study, we investigated muscle cocontraction during a street dance movement task to provide evidence that the level of muscle cocontraction is associated with degree of proficiency in whole-body sensorimotor synchronization movement. Skilled street dancers and nondancers were required to synchronize a knee-bending movement in a standing position to a metronome beat. The dancer group showed significantly smaller variability of temporal deviation (defined as the peak kneeflexion time minus beat onset time), and lower level of muscle cocontraction analyzed by electromyographic data of the agonist and antagonist muscles of the upper and lower leg than did the nondancer group. In addition, multiple regression analyses revealed that the group effect significantly predicted the level of muscle cocontraction. These results show that the level of muscle cocontraction in the lower limbs during whole-body sensorimotor synchronization movement is associated with the degree of proficiency of the movement.

Concurrent activation of muscles on opposite sides of joints is a common phenomenon. In simple planar mechanical systems, it is easy to identify such an electromyographic pattern as co-contraction of agonist and antagonist muscles. In complex 3-D systems such as the lumbar spine, it is more difficult to precisely identify whether EMG recordings represent co-contraction. Qualitative definitions of antagonist muscles emphasize that their actions wholly oppose the action of the prime movers. The qualitative definition of antagonist muscles was used to formulate a mathematical requirement for there to be co-contraction of agonists and antagonists. It was shown that the definition of co-contraction implies muscle activity beyond what is required to maintain equilibrium. The method was illustrated by classifying EMG recordings made of the lumbar region musculature during tasks involving combined torso extension and axial twisting loads. The method, which identified muscle activity in excess of that required to maintain static equilibrium, could be used to identify conditions in which muscle activation is required for something other than merely maintaining moment equilibrium.

This study investigated performance and wrist muscle activity during rapid-repetitive unimanual tapping with a drumstick in right-handed drummers and nondrummers. Analyses of performances revealed no difference in tapping frequency and peak tap force between drummers and nondrummers, although the drummers showed less variability in intertap interval than the nondrummers. Analyses of the electromyographic (EMG) data obtained by recording the activity of the flexor carpi ulnalis and the extensor carpi radialis muscles of the right wrist revealed several distinct differences between the two groups: the drummers showed a lower level of muscle cocontraction together with an earlier decline of wrist flexor muscle activity and a smaller variability of muscle activation time in the wrist flexors compared with the nondrummers. We suggest that these characteristics in wrist muscle activity in the drummers have been acquired following extensive practice for the efficient use of wrist muscles and stable drumming performance.

Muscle stress is plainly one of the physical variables that the central nervous system probably wishes to minimize. This criterion does not uniquely define the patterns of muscle activation. It fails to explain the degree of coactivation of muscle antagonists that is widely found, and it cannot explain why two movements or movement segments that follow an identical trajectory driven by identical joint torques can be driven by different patterns of muscle activation. Muscle contraction provides for both net joint torque and limb stability. The minimization of the sum of muscle stresses, raised to any power, is an insufficient rule.