Peer Review #1 of "Surface electromyographic analysis of differential effects in kettlebell carries for the serratus anterior muscles (v0.1)"

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in the Electromyography (EMG) amplitude of the serratus anterior between forty-five degree kettlebell carries and ninety degree kettlebell carries. Thirty-three men aged roughly between 19-23 and who were either college or professional baseball pitchers were chosen and randomly assigned to either perform the forty-five degree kettlebell carry followed by the ninety degree kettlebell carry (n=17) or the ninety degree kettlebell carry followed by the forty five degree kettlebell carry (n=16). Each pitcher was instructed in the proper usage of the exercise and assigned a short break between the two carries. Changes in EMG amplitude were examined after proper band-pass filtering, normalization, and moving averagesmoothing of the raw EMG signal. Differences of the EMG amplitude mean frequencies were examined between each subject's individual carries and the clumped groups of all forty-five and ninety degree carries. Among each individual comparison, eight pitchers had "large" Effect Size differences between the EMG amplitudes of their two carries, with seven of them signaling the forty-five degree carry as the larger value. In addition, when examining the grouped mean differences of the EMG amplitudes, we found the forty-five degree carries to be significantly higher (p-value of 0.018).