Isokinetic testing of flexor and extensor muscles in athletes suffering from low back pain.

BACKGROUND: The aim of the study was to verify the usefulness of isokinetic testing in athletes with chronic low back pain (LBP) to obtain quantitative information for rehabilitation purposes. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: a comparative study. SETTING: Physiotherapy Department--Institute of Sports Medicine in Italy. PARTICIPANTS: 50 men, aged 25-65, practising running, cycling, triathlon, tennis, soccer, basketball, volleyball, skiing and golf. The patients were divided into two groups. Group A was treated for 3 months with postural exercises 2 or 3 times a week. Group B was treated for the same period of time with resistive exercises performed by resorting to specific machines. MEASUREMENTS: Before and after treatment, trunk muscle strength was evaluated by means of an isokinetic test carried out in a seated position. The isokinetic measurements used were peak torque (PT), work, power-in the best repetition and total work (TW) in four repetitions. Both the pain and the functional impairment during physical activity was evaluated by subjective visual analogic scale. RESULTS: The PT showed a parallel increase in flexor and extensor muscles in Group A. In Group B it increased by 32.2% at 60 degrees/s and 44.1% at 120 degrees/s as for the extensor muscles while the flexion-to-extension ratio decreased significantly. The TW registered a bigger percentage increase in both groups (+21% at 60 degrees/s and +20.4% at 120 degrees/s in Group A; +36.5% at 60 degrees/s and +50.3% at 120 degrees/s in Group B). CONCLUSIONS: The two rehabilitation programmes had the same effect on the course of LBP, but in Group B we observed a bigger increase in strength which could be potentially useful during a sports activity.

Hematological status in a group of male athletes of different sports.

Suboptimal hematological status has been often recorded in athletes involved in intense physical activity, particularly in middle and long distance runners. It appeared therefore interesting the study and comparison of athletes groups of different sports. One hundred eighty-one male athletes were tested and divided into seven groups according to sport exercise: cross-country skiing, cycling, fencing and tennis (joined together), rowing, running, soccer, swimming. For every athletes erythrocyte and hemoglobin blood concentration, hematocrit, serum iron, transferrin, ferritin and haptoglobin concentration were measured, the mean cell volume and serum iron/transferrin ratio were calculated. Data were compared to find out correlation indices and then grouped according to the practised sport. Statistical indices were computed for each group and for all parameter and analysis of variance was carried out to value the significativity of found differences. The only parameter showing statistically significant differences among groups was the serum level of haptoglobin, with mean value significantly lower in runners. The evidence of this study suggests that individual variability for the remaining parameters exceeds any variation possibly induced by different sport practices.