Evaluación del nivel de actividad física mediante la rigidez musculo-articular en adultos jóvenes

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to evaluate the level of physical activity of young adults bymeans of the Musculo-articular stiffness and to analyse its correlation with the physicalperformance measured in jump capacity. The proposed protocol includes a Muscle-articulartest of both legs, a test of maximum voluntary contraction in isometric conditions(MVCi), a countermovement jump test (CMJ), and a drop jump (DJ) protocol from differentheights (20, 40 and 60 cm). 21 healthy young adult subjects (12 males and 9 females).The mechanical variables are: force (f), Muscle-articular stiffness (k) and Muscle-articularUnitary stiffness (ku). Physical variables: Jump flight height (h) and force generated (f).An Anova of repeated measurements was performed to analyse the influence of genderand laterality and a Pearson correlation to analyse the relationship between mechanicaland physical parameters. The results obtained show a clear symmetry in physical andmechanical parameters. There were significant differences between men and women (fand k) (p<0.05) being in absolute terms higher in men than in women but not in relativeterms (ku). A clear correlation was obtained between mechanical parameters and MVCiin absolute terms (p<0.05). Ku allows comparisons between different subjects but its interpretationis not as intuitive as in absolute terms due to the application of the Hill’s modelon the mechanical response of muscle-tendon complexes that establishes a nonlinearrelationship between f and k.