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. 2014 Feb 24;3(4):318-23.
eCollection 2013 Oct.

The acute effect of the tongue position in the mouth on knee isokinetic test performance: a highly surprising pilot study

Rosa di Vico  1 , Luca Paolo Ardigò  2 , Gianluca Salernitano  1 , Karim Chamari  3 , Johnny Padulo  4
Affiliations

The acute effect of the tongue position in the mouth on knee isokinetic test performance: a highly surprising pilot study

Rosa di Vico et al. Muscles Ligaments Tendons J. .

Abstract

The tongue involvement within the isokinetic knee extension/flexion exercises has been investigated. Eighteen participants randomly underwent isokinetic testing at 90 and 180°/s with three different tongue positions: middle position (MID, thrusting on the lingual surface of incisive teeth), lying on the lower arch of the mouth (LOW) and extended up to the palatine spot (UP). Statistical analysis of the data revealed an about 30% significant increase of knee flexion peak torque in UP with respect to MID at both angular speeds. Such a difference could have had a confounding effect on results from numerous past studies using isokinetic knee flexion testing. This study alerts future researchers about standardization of tongue position and warrants further investigations on the explicative processes of this phenomenon.

Keywords: CNS path; isokinetic test; knee flexion; maximum peak torque; tongue position.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Photographs of the three investigated tongue positions. From top to bottom: (A) middle position, i.e., just behind the front teeth (MID); (B) extended up to the palatine spot (UP); (C) lying on the lower arch (LOW). On the figure, the mouth is open, just to show the tongue’s position. During experiments, the mouth was closed.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Maximum peak torque (MPT) values over different tongue’s postures. Ex, Flex, MID, LOW and UP for extension, flexion, (tongue) thrusting on the lingual surface of incisive teeth, lying on the lower arch and extended up to the palatine spot, respectively. * p < 0.05 significant difference of MID and/or LOW compared to UP position.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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