💪 EMG Comparison of Biceps Brachii vs Brachialis During Curl Variations

📌 Overview

This repository provides MATLAB code for analyzing surface EMG signals of the biceps brachii and brachialis during two common strength exercises:

• Biceps Curl
• Hammer Curl

The workflow includes band-pass filtering, rectification, RMS calculation, MVC normalization, and plotting to compare relative activation between muscles. This approach is widely used in biomechanics and exercise science to study neuromuscular strategies during resistance training.

---

⚙️ Features

• Import EMG data from Excel files
• Apply band-pass filtering (20–500 Hz, Butterworth)
• Compute RMS EMG with moving window
• Normalize signals to Maximum Voluntary Contraction (MVC)
• Plot activation curves for:
  • Biceps curl (biceps vs brachialis)
  • Hammer curl (biceps vs brachialis)

---

📊 Example Outputs

• Normalized EMG during biceps curl (%MVC for each muscle)
• Normalized EMG during hammer curl (%MVC for each muscle)

Plots clearly show the relative contributions of biceps vs brachialis depending on exercise style.

---

📂 Repository Structure

├── muscle_activation_comparison.m # Main MATLAB script ├── biceps_mvc.exc.xlsx # Example MVC data (biceps) ├── br_mvc_exc.xlsx # Example MVC data (brachialis) ├── bicep_curl.exc.xlsx # Example exercise trial (curl) ├── br_curl.exc.xlsx # Example exercise trial (hammer curl) └── README.md # Documentation

🔧 Usage

1. Place your EMG .xlsx files in the repo folder.
2. Open MATLAB and run:

   muscle_activation_comparison
   
   ---
   

🔧 Usage

1. Place your EMG .xlsx files in the repo folder.
2. Open MATLAB and run:

   muscle_activation_comparison

The script will output:

RMS-normalized activation curves

Comparative plots (%MVC) for each muscle and exercise

📚 References De Luca CJ. (1997). The use of surface electromyography in biomechanics. J Appl Biomech, 13(2), 135–163.

Enoka RM. (2008). Neuromechanics of Human Movement (4th ed.). Human Kinetics.

Vigotsky AD et al. (2018). Interpreting signal amplitudes in surface EMG. Eur J Appl Physiol, 118, 511–518.