B. Gutnik and J. Leaver (New Zealand)
First dorsal interosseous, visco-elasticity, specific energy.
Subjective techniques are widely employed for measuring skeletal muscle tone while objective methods are scarcely used in clinical and research practice, because there is no precise description of this natural phenomenon in physical terms. The aim of the study is to determine indexes that are indicative of muscle tone, based on the pure physical internal properties of skeletal muscle in vivo. Muscle was tested and data analysed using the load deformation relationship applied to skeletal muscle. The first dorsal interosseous muscles on the both sides (trained and untrained) were subsequently automatically compressed and decompressed. The automatic equipment developed by the authors allows the objective and rapid measurement of multiple characteristics of muscle tone. Twenty strongly right-handed young males returned three data acquisition sequences from each hand. From the sequences the specific energy and power of compression and recoil along with muscular “set” was determined. Indexes that best reflect muscle tone are dissipating energy, power, and muscle “set”.
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