Electromyographic signal changes during exercise in human chronic jaw-muscle pain.

Twelve individuals (2 males, 10 females) with chronic masticatory muscle pain and 11 individuals (2 males, 9 females) without, had their bite force and surface electromyography from the right and left superficial masseter and anterior temporalis muscles recorded before, during and after a 30-s sustained submaximal clenching task. This task was performed at 50% of the force level of each subject's maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) for 30 s. Brief (3 s) 50% MVC efforts were recorded at 15-s intervals, three times before and six times after the sustained clench.