ANALYSIS OF ISOKINETIC KNEE EXTENSION / FLEXION IN MALE ELITE ADOLESCENT WRESTLERS

Abstract

Wrestling requires strength of the upper and lower body musculature which is critical for the athletic performance. Evaluation of the adolescent’s skeletal muscle is important to understand body movement, especially including those involved in sports. Strength, power and endurance capacity are defined as parameters of skeletal muscle biomechanical properties. The isokinetic dynamometer is an important toll for making this type of evaluation. However, load range phase of range of motion has to be considered to interpret the data correctly. With this in mind we aimed to investigate the lover body musculature contractile characteristics of adolescent wrestlers together with detailed analyses of load range phase of motion. Thirteen boys aged 12- 14 years participated to this study. Concentric load range torque, work and power of knee extension and flexion were measured by a Cybex Norm dynamometer at angular velocities from 450°/sec to 30°/sec with 30°/sec decrements for each set. None of the wrestlers were able to attain load range for angular velocities above 390°/sec and 420°/sec for extension and flexion respectively. Detailed analyses of the load range resulted in statistically significant differences in the normalized load range peak torque for extension at 270°/sec (1.44 ± 0.28 Nm·kg-1and 1.14 ± 0.28 Nm·kg-1 for total and load range peak torque respectively, p < 0.05), and for flexion at 300 o/sec (1.26 ± 0.28