Grip Strength and Forearm Circumference in a Healthy Population

Abstract

Two hundred and fifty subjects were recruited. Age, sex, hand preference and anthropometric measurements were recorded for each subject. Grip strength was measured using a Jamar hydraulic dynamometer. Multiple regression analyses were performed. One hundred and seventy two subjects were men and 78 were women. Twenty-six subjects were left hand dominant. Hand grip strength was greatest for the 35 to 44 year old group for both sexes. Grip strength was consistently greater for men than women. Contralateral grip strength predicted maximum grip strength for both sexes. Forearm circumference predicted maximum hand grip strength for men. Although there was a large range of forearm circumferences in the population, there was little difference between sides for each subject (100% less than 2 cm). The demonstrated relationships between: (i) contralateral grip strengths and (ii) grip strength and forearm circumference lead us to suggest that for certain pathologies, a difference in forearm circumference greater than 2 cm may lend credence to a measurement of diminished grip strength.

Automatic Circumference Measurement for Aiding in the Estimation of Maximum Voluntary Contraction (MVC) in EMG Systems

“…The feasibility of this research comes from a number of sources that prove muscle and grip strength is positively correlated to some anthropometric variables, such as forearm circumference, size, volume, and cross-sectional area [8] The relationship between dominant grip strength and dominant forearm circumference for 250 subjects with lines of best fit applied for both sexes [9] There are circumstances where the larger muscle is not always the stronger muscle, as there are three important factors that contribute towards muscle strength: physiological strength, neurological strength and mechanical strength. Physiological strength involves factors of muscle size, neurological strength relates to the strength of the signal that tells your muscles to contract, and mechanical strength is how efficiently your muscles and bones work together as levers.…”

Using forearm circumference for automatic threshold calibration for simple EMG control

“…The link between MVC, muscle strength and circumference has already been established [1] [12]. Our research is about trying to establish an easy to obtain sensor position, such that automatic circumference measurements might be able to estimate MVC for automatic calibration within an acceptable error.…”

La fuerza isométrica del agarre en judo

“…Por otro lado, algunos autores (Anakwe, Huntley, & Mceachan, 2007;Nicolay & Walker 2005) afirman que las medidas antropométricas del antebrazo son un mejor predictor de la fuerza del agarre que la masa corporal y la altura, debido a que muestran correlaciones más fuertes con el pico de fuerza. Bonitch-Góngora et al (2013), encontraron altas correlaciones entre la circunferencia del antebrazo (cm) y el área muscular del brazo (N/cm 2 ) (r = 0.79, p ≤ 0.01), y el pico de fuerza isométrica (r = 0.80, p ≤ 0.01).…”