Neural control of the healthy pectoralis major from low-to-moderate isometric contractions

Abstract

This work is the first to investigate the relative contribution of rate coding and motor unit recruitment in the pectoralis major muscle in several functionally relevant tasks and across varying force levels in healthy adults. Our results demonstrate the absence of motor unit rate coding with an increase in EMG amplitude with increases in force level in all tasks examined, indicating that the pectoralis major relies on motor unit recruitment to increase force.