Razi Journal of Medical Sciences

    Background & Aim: Closed kinetic chain exercises are the most popular methods of lower limb muscles strengthening both in physical therapy and sports. One of these exercises is squatting. Despite the common idea about the activation of many muscular groups during this exercise, there is little research work on the activation pattern of muscles while squatting. In this regard, some researchers propose that there be different activation patterns while squatting in different hip positions. The purpose of this study was to show whether hip position can alter electromyographic(EMG) activity of vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, adductor magnus , and biceps femoris muscles. Patients & Method: Twenty non-athletic healthy females participated in this experimental descriptive study. They were asked to make parallel squat moves in three different positions namely abduction, adduction, and neutral. While exercising, EMG signals associated with the above-mentioned muscles were recorded and parameters of normalized EMG were analyzed using ANOVA(repeated measure). Results: The findings showed that there was no significant difference between EMG patterns recorded in different positions of squatting. Conclusion: It is concluded that in strengthening programs for rehabilitation purposes, hip position has no specific effect on any of different muscles tested in this study and all are strengthened equally.