Short-Term Muscle Fatigue and Recovery in Different Types of Athletes

ONU McIntosh Center; Activities Room

Having poor grip strength can cause an increase of injuries and difficulty to perform day to day tasks. The goal of this IRB approved research was to investigate how athletic sport activities impact muscle fatigue and recovery in grip strength. The study consisted of ten males between the ages of 18 and 24 from four different collegiate sport teams: (1) wrestlers, (2) football players, (3) e-sports players, and (4) basketball players, at Ohio Northern University. For each athlete, grip strength (pounds per square inch) was measured before and after squeezing a 60 kg. grip strengthener 30 times to induce muscle fatigue in their grip. A minute after the post activity grip strength was taken, grip strength recovery was then measured. Mean % grip strength retained post fatigue induction and mean % grip strength recovered were calculated and compared among the four athletic groups by two one-way ANOVA tests. Both tests showed that there were not any statistically significant differences in either parameter between athletic groups; grip strength for the 3 testing conditions were statistically significant within two groups only [basketball (F=5.21, P=0.01); football (F=6.26, P=0.006)]. However, the composite mean scores (=combined means of each of the three-grip strength condition for all 4 athletic groups) were significantly different (F=63.08, p=2.6 x 10^-19) between the initial grip strength and the post exercise grip strength (p=5.48 x 10^-15), between the post exercise grip strength and the recovery grip strength (p=1.36 x 10^-11) as well as between the initial grip strength and recovery grip strength (p=0.000115). In summary, regardless of athletic group, grip strength retained after short-term muscle fatigue and grip strength recovery were consistent throughout the study.