Hamstring And Quadriceps Strength Ratio: Effect Of Age And Gender

Abstract

Background: Balance in the strength of extensors and flexors of the knee joint is important for functional usage of the knee in various activities. It has been documented that knee flexor-extensor ratio may vary depending on the angular velocity, the population tested, the measuring equipment, age, test position, sex, total body weight and type of activity the subjects are involved in.
Objective: The study was carried out to investigate how age and gender could influence the hamstring-quadriceps (knee flexor-extensor) muscle strength ratio in a Nigerian urban population.
Methods: One hundred and fifty apparently healthy male and female right-dominant subjects in three age groups (group I, 11-20 years; group II, 21-40 years and group III, 41-60 years) participated. Subjects hamstrings and quadriceps isometric muscle strength were measured and their ages were recorded. The hamstring-quadriceps strength ratio for each subject was calculated. Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation were used to summarize the date and inferential statistics of independent t-test the one way analysis of variance and Scheffe's post-hoc test were used for further analysis. The level of significance was set at 0.05 alpha.
Result: The results showed that the hamstring muscle of the subjects has a strength that is about half the strength of the ipsilated quadriceps femoris muscle in each of the groups. A comparison of hamstring-quadriceps muscle strength ratio across the age groups revealed no significant difference among the male as well as the female subjects (p>0.05). No significant gender difference was found among the subjects in the age group 11-20 years and 41-60 years (p>0.05) but in the age group 21-40 years the male subjects had a significantly higher hamstring-quadriceps strength ratio than their female counterparts (p>0.05).
Conclusions: It was concluded that age has no effect on the hamstring-quadriceps (knee flexor/extensor) strength ratio whether in the female or male individuals and that gender variation was related to sense of competitiveness, societal achievement expectation and proneness to display prowess.


Keywords: Muscular strength, Harmstring-Quandricpes strength ratio, Age and Gender.

Highland Medical Research Journal Vol. 5 (1) 2007 pp. 90-95