THE EFFECTS OF FOREARM POSITION ON HANDGRIP STRENGTH (1 - 8)

Abstract

Journal of Sports Science and Physical Education 2(1): 2-8, 2013 - This study was conducted to investigate i) while the shoulder was in 180° of flexion and the elbow extended, which of the forearm position (supination, pronation and neutral) can generate the greatest handgrip strength, ii) is there any correlation of the handgrip strength between the dominant hand (right hand) and non-dominant hand (left hand) in each forearm position, and iii) will the dominant hand possessed 10% higher handgrip strength than the non-dominant hand. 100 right handed sedentary active students age 22.20 years old (± 1.03), height 172.83 cm (± 6.37), body mass 68.87 (± 11.52) and grip position 3.77 (± 0.77) were recruited in this study. The result indicated that for both the dominant and non-dominant hand, when the shoulder is in 180˚ flexion of the body with the elbow extended, the greatest grip strength was obtained when the forearm was in neutral position followed by pronation and supination position. Post Hoc analysis showed that for both dominant hand and non-dominant hand, pronation and supination forearm position produced greater strength score compared to supination forearm position (p<0.05). No significant different were found comparing pronation and neutral forearm position (p>0.05). In all forearm position, participants were shown to produced significantly greater strength in their dominant hand and all the scores were more than 10% greater compared to when using non-dominant hand. Positive relationships were also found for the strength score between dominant hand and non-dominant hand. As the conclusion, different shoulder, elbow and forearm position can affect handgrip strength.

Keywords: handgrip strength, supination, pronation, neutral, dominant hand, non-dominant hand