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J Appl Physiol (March 15, 2002). doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00012.2002
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Articles in PresS, published online ahead of print March 15, 2002
J Appl Physiol, 10.1152/jap.00012.2002
Submitted on January 10, 2002
Accepted on March 11, 2002

Voluntary Muscle Activation Varies with Age and Muscle Group

Jennifer M Jakobi1* and Charles L Rice2

1 Department of Kinesiology and Applied Physiology, Neural Control of Movement Laboratory, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA
2 Department of Kinesiology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jennifer.jakobi{at}colorado.edu.

The consistency and the number of attempts required to achieve maximal voluntary muscle activation has not been documented and compared between young and old adults. Furthermore, few studies have contrasted activation between functional pairs of muscle groups, and none have tested upper limb muscles. The purpose of this study was to measure and compare voluntary muscle activation of the elbow flexors and extensors in young and old men over two separate test sessions. Using the method of twitch interpolation to measure activation, six young (24 ± 1 years) and six old (83 ± 4 years) men performed five maximal voluntary contractions (MVC), in each session for each muscle group. Elbow flexion and extension MVC was less (43% and 47%, respectively) in the old men, yet the best maximal voluntary muscle activation was similar between age groups. However, when all 10 attempts at MVC were compared, the mean activation scores were slightly less (~5%) in the elbow extensors, but were ~11% less (p<0.001) in the elbow flexors of old men, compared with young men. On the second session there was a significant improvement of 13% (p<0.005) in mean elbow flexor activation in the old men. There were no session differences for either muscle group for the young men. The results indicate that for aged men elbow flexor maximal activation is achieved less frequently compared with elbow extensors, and thus mean activation for elbow flexors is less than for elbow extensors. However, if sufficient attempts are provided, the best effort for the old men is not different from the young men for either muscle group.




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