Muscular strength is an important component for physical activity and performance of activities of daily living. A phenomenon usually observed is that the capacity of generating maximum strength is compromised when the homologous extremities bilaterally contract. This phenomenon is called bilateral deficit. Thus, the aim of this work was to compare the electrical activity of the deltoid muscle, medial portion, during unilateral and bilateral contractions in a multiarticular machine of convergent articulated development, with 90% of maximum voluntary load (mvl), in nine men aged between 20 and 30 years, stature of 174 ± 5cm and body mass of 78 ± 15 kg. The myoelectrical signals were obtained through placement of differential active surface electrodes by EMG System of Brazil, a reference electrode (ground) and a signal conditioner module (electromyograph), which provided numerical data in RMS (root median square) for results analysis. Each signal collected picked only the concentric phase of the movement and it had duration of three seconds. The results evidenced that during bilateral and unilateral exercise with 90% of MVL, the electric activity of the non-dominant extremity was significantly higher than in the dominant one (p = 0.018). When the values obtained in the work of dominant extremity are summed with the work of non-dominant extremity in the bilateral exercise (2.231 ± 504µv) and compared with the values obtained in the unilateral work (2.663 ± 701µv), bilateral deficit was found (p = 0.018). According to our study, it was verified that the bilateral defict phenomenon is present in the medium deltoid muscle in the multiarticular exercise of convergent articulated development in individuals familiarized with resistance exercises.
multiarticular exercise; bilateral deficit; EMG
