Differences between vastus medialis and lateralis excitation onsets are dependent on the relative distance of surface electrodes placement from the innervation zone location

Conflictual results between the onset of vastus medialis (VM) and vastus lateralis (VL) excitation may arise from methodological aspects related to the detection of surface electromyograms. In this study we used an array of surface electrodes to assess the effect of detection site, relative to the muscle innervation zone, on the difference between VM and VL excitation onsets. Ten healthy males performed moderate isometric knee extension at 40 % of their maximal voluntary isometric contraction. After the actual VM-VL onset was defined (estimated when action potentials were generated at the neuromuscular junctions of both muscles), we calculated the largest bias that the detection site may introduce in the VM-VL onset estimation. We also assessed whether the location often considered for positioning bipolar electrodes on each muscle leads to VM-VL onset estimations comparable to the actual VM-VL onset. Our main results revealed that a maximum absolute bias of 20.48 ms may be introduced in VM-VL onset estimations due to the electrodes’ detection site. In addition, mean differences of ∼ 12 ms in VM-VL onset estimations were attributable to largest possible discrepancies in the paired position of channels with respect to the innervation zone for VL and VM. When considering the classical location for positioning the bipolar electrodes over these muscles, differences error was subtle (∼3.4 ms) when compared with the actual VM-VL onset. Nonetheless, when accounting for the effect of relative differences in electrode position between muscles is not possible, our results suggest that a systematic absolute error of ∼ 12 ms should be considered in future studies regarding VM-VL onset estimations, suggesting that onset differences lower than that might not be clinically relevant.