Critical reviews in biomedical engineering
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This article reviews the history of attempts to define in quantitative terms the relationship between a processed electromyographic signal and the corresponding force produced by skeletal muscle. Numerous reports have indicated a linear relationship between isometric force and rectified, integrated EMG. These reports, the nature of their experiments, and the disagreements among them are reviewed. ⋯ The effect of joint position and level of muscular effort in the isometric case are discussed. Various proposed mathematical models of the force-EMG relationship are presented and analyzed. The concluding section of the paper summarizes the current areas of agreement and disagreement and comments on the feasibility of obtaining force-EMG relation in the presence of movement.