Several years of hospitalization causes a disproportionate decline in the muscle strength known to affect balance, increase the risk of joint injuries, and hinder movements involved in sports.
Thus, rehabilitation programs should work to build the strength involved in these types of activities, using typical resistance exercises (eg, leg press), but with the attention of lifting the resistance as rapidly as possible, according to a study from the University of Roehampton published in Experimental Physiology.
The effects of long-term muscle inactivity (via eg, sedentary behavior, hospitalization, or space travel) have proven difficult to study in a laboratory environment, as there are ethical issues with enforcing prolonged physical inactivity. Previous research has shown that the thigh muscles of individuals with an amputation below the knee are used less during movement and therefore become weak.
Amy Sibley, Neale Tillin and colleagues at the University of Roehampton therefore used below-knee amputees as a model to understand muscular changes that happen with long-term inactivity. Similar changes might happen in the muscles of someone who is hospitalized, sedentary, or traveling in space, a media release from The Physiological Society states.
Scientific studies have previously defined two main types of strength: maximum and explosive. Maximum strength is the maximum capacity of one’s muscles for producing force.
Explosive strength is the ability to quickly produce force, and is relevant during many daily activities such as recovering from a loss of balance, avoiding joint injuries, and when playing sports. When the researchers compared maximum and explosive strength, they note that amputees lost comparatively more explosive strength.
They also suggest that the muscular changes that accompanied this reduction in strength could not have been anticipated from the typical short-term bed rest studies, and were specific to the type of strength examined.
Therefore, rehabilitation regimens (for amputees or other populations who have experienced inactivity) should be tailored to help them recover explosive strength specifically.
“This research has exciting potential to help people who have been inactive long-term, due to hospitalization for example, regain the strength they need for daily activities such as avoiding falls,” Amy Sibley, the study’s first author, says in the release.
“To achieve this aim, clinicians need to be specific about the type of strength training they use. For example, typical resistance exercises (eg, leg press) should be performed with the intention of lifting the resistance as rapidly as possible.”
[Source(s): The Physiological Society, EurekAlert]
