Is interindividual variability of EMG patterns in trained cyclists related to different muscle synergies?

Our aim was to determine whether muscle synergies are similar across trained cyclists (and thus whether the same locomotor strategies for pedaling are used), despite interindividual variability of individual EMG patterns. Nine trained cyclists were tested during a constant-load pedaling exercise performed at 80% of maximal power. Surface EMG signals were measured in 10 lower limb muscles. A decomposition algorithm (nonnegative matrix factorization) was applied to a set of 40 consecutive pedaling cycles to differentiate muscle synergies. We selected the least number of synergies that provided 90% of the variance accounted for VAF. Using this criterion, three synergies were identified for all of the subjects, accounting for 93.5+/-2.0% of total VAF, with VAF for individual muscles ranging from 89.9+/-8.2% to 96.6+/-1.3%. Each of these synergies was quite similar across all subjects, with a high mean correlation coefficient for synergy activation coefficients (0.927+/-0.070, 0.930+/-0.052, and 0.877+/-0.110 for synergies 1-3, respectively) and muscle synergy vectors (0.873+/-0.120, 0.948+/-0.274, and 0.885+/-0.129 for synergies 1-3, respectively). Despite a large consistency across subjects in the weighting of several monoarticular muscles into muscle synergy vectors, we found larger interindividual variability for another monoarticular muscle (soleus) and for biarticular muscles (rectus femoris, gastrocnemius lateralis, biceps femoris, and semimembranosus). This study demonstrated that pedaling is accomplished by the combination of the similar three muscle synergies among trained cyclists. The interindividual variability of EMG patterns observed during pedaling does not represent differences in the locomotor strategy for pedaling.