Effect of Salat (Prayer) Movements versus Specific Stretching Exercises on Electromyographic Activity of Erector Spinae Muscle
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- Category: Vol. 85, March 2017
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Effect of Salat (Prayer) Movements versus Specific Stretching Exercises on Electromyographic Activity of Erector Spinae Muscle, SHAZA SAMIR, DALIA M. MOSAAD and NEVEEN ABD ELLATIF
Abstract
Background: Salat is the prayer practiced by most of Muslims for five times a day and night. It involves several physical motions, namely standing, bowing and prostration. Benefits of salat from the spiritual point of view have been discussed at length by religious scholars. However, there is still little discussion on the salat's benefit from science perspective even though it can be seen that performing salat is like performing slow and moderate exercise.
Objectives: This study was conducted to investigate the effect of salat movements versus specific stretching exercises on electromyographic activity of erector spinae muscle.
Methods: Thirty subjects of both gender (17 males and 13 females) with age ranging from 19 to 25 years voluntarily participated in this study. They were assigned in one group, each subject was randomly allocated for one of five different positions, 1) 45 degrees bowing, 2) bowing, 3) prostration, 4) long sitting bent-over back stretch position and 5) double knee to chest stretch position. The electromyographic activity of right and left erector spinae muscle was recorded and analyzed for each position as a ratio of maximum contraction recorded for each muscle.
Results: The univariate tests of repeated measure MANO-VA revealed that there were significant differences in the mean values of EMG activity of right and left erecter spinea muscle among different positions (F=77.322, p=0.000*) and (F=77.170, p=0.0001 *) respectively.
Conclusion: Salat movements (bowing and prostration) are more advantageous than specific stretching exercises on decreasing erector spinae muscle myoelectrical activities. This indicates that subjects performing everyday prayer has the benefit of stretching effect on their erector spinae muscle. It can improve musculoskeletal system in both normal and subjects with low back pain receives stretching exercises as part of their rehabilitation program.