ISOKINETIC STRENGHT OF THE WRIST IN MALE AIKIDO ATHLETES
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| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | Compared to other combat sports/martial arts, physiological research on aikido is scarce. For instance, aikido athletes are reported to have the third fastest choice reaction time compared to other combat sport athletes. Aikido was also reported to affect blood pressure by activating ki energy. The purpose of the current study was to assess isokinetic strength of the wrist in recreational aikido athletes. Male subjects (n = 10, 32.60 ± 8.17 years, 178.70 ± 6.05 cm, 75.80 ± 8.93 kg) were recruited from a summer camp organized at Masaryk University. Subjects were tested on a Cybex Humac Norm at 120o, 180o and 240o/sec on both left and right wrists. A 3-way (Side x Movement x Angular Velocity) Anova with repeated measures on the second and third factors was used to assess the differences between right and left wrist extension and flexion by angular velocity. The level of significance was set to an effect size of 0.20. There was no Movement x Side interaction (eta2 = 0.03, 95% CI: -0.52 – 0.72), but the effect was not clear. However, there was a multi-variate main effect for Movement (eta2 = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.80 – 0.99). The univariate follow-up analysis revealed that collapsed over angular velocity, wrist extension (14.53 ± 3.83 Nm) yielded a significantly lower strength value than wrist flexion (28.63 ± 7.90 Nm): d = 2.40, 95% CI: 0.41 – 3.37). More research is indicated with not only a larger sample size but also with aikidoka varying in age and experience. Female practitioners should be investigated as well. |