Muscle Force-Velocity Relationships Observed in Four Different Functional Tests

Abstract

The aims of the present study were to investigate the shape and strength of the force-velocity relationships observed in different functional movement tests and explore the parameters depicting force, velocity and power producing capacities of the tested muscles. Twelve subjects were tested on maximum performance in vertical jumps, cycling, bench press throws, and bench pulls performed against different loads. Thereafter, both the averaged and maximum force and velocity variables recorded from individual trials were used for force-velocity relationship modeling. The observed individual force-velocity relationships were exceptionally strong (median correlation coefficients ranged from r = 0.930 to r = 0.995) and approximately linear independently of the test and variable type. Most of the relationship parameters observed from the averaged and maximum force and velocity variable types were strongly related in all tests (r = 0.789-0.991), except for those in vertical jumps (r = 0.485-0.930). However, the generalizability of the force-velocity relationship parameters depicting maximum force, velocity and power of the tested muscles across different tests was inconsistent and on average moderate. We concluded that the linear force-velocity relationship model based on either maximum or averaged force-velocity data could provide the outcomes depicting force, velocity and power generating capacity of the tested muscles, although such outcomes can only be partially generalized across different muscles.

Keywords: generalizability; load; output; parameter; power.

Figure 1

Illustration of the functional tests of leg (upper panels) and arm muscles (bottom panels).Specifically, CMJ, CYCLING, B-PRESS, B-PULL were conducted against variable external loads to provide a range of the averaged and maximum F and V data for further modeling

Figure 2

The linear (solid line) and second-order polynomial regression models (dashed line) applied to the averaged across the subject F and V variable types obtained from 4 different tests and shown separately for the averaged (filled squares) and maximum (open squares) F and V variable types. The regression equations are shown with the corresponding correlation coefficients and 95% CI.

Figure 3

Correlation coefficients between the same F-V regression parameters observed in the averaged and maximum F and V variable types in each of 4 tests (*p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01)