Applying EMG spike and peak counting for a real-time muscle fatigue monitoring system

This paper introduces an electromyography (EMG) signal spike-counter system for quantification of muscle fatigue. Through a study of fatiguing leg extension of the rectus femoris (RF) and vastus lateralis (VL) muscles we show that spike and peak counting in EMG data is significantly correlated (>0.85 R-squared value) with the traditional median frequency (MDF) quantifier for muscle fatigue. This allows for a more computationally efficient and simpler approach using spike counting for an implementation of a real-time muscle fatigue monitoring system.