Already in 1923 science confirmed that “the analysis of the mechanical effects of muscle excitements would be incomplete if only changes in muscle length were examined disregarding changes in muscle thickness”. Distortions of muscle contraction mechanics due to longitudinal signal pathways were recently overcame by the mechanomyographic methods, where one of them, the Tensiomyography is a non-invasive method for detecting skeletal muscle contractile properties using a linear displacement sensor. It was designed to assess skeletal muscle thickening and low frequency lateral oscillations of active skeletal muscle fibres during twitch contractions and overcomes the limitations of mechanomyographic methods (low signal to noise ratio; low reliability; complex measuring setup; the need for complex post-processing) and dynamometry (low signal to noise ratio; pain; signal distortion, muscle cross-talk). Since its first scientific publication in 1990 more than 100 SCI articles show its use and purpose: in the estimation of muscle composition; for evaluating muscle atrophy and tone; for measuring adaptation to different pathologies; for measuring adaptation to specific training; and for measuring muscle fatigue.
The lecture will focus on the presentation of the scientific background of the Tensiomyography as well as the motivation for its development. Furthermore, we will focus on reliability and validity studies, together with its applications. During the lecture many future directions of TMG-based research will be proposed, focusing on mathematical and medical grounds.
