Assessment and Comparison of Isokinetic Strength of Hip, Knee and Ankle Joints in Young Adults

This study was conducted to observe the isokinetic strength (IS) of the hip, ankle, and knee joints in young age groups. Thirty eight men and thirty one women with mean age of $30.4{\pm}3.5$ and $32.8{\pm}4.4years$, respectively, were enrolled in this study. Measurements of hip flexion, extension, abduction, and adduction at $30^{\circ}/sec$, Knee flexion and extension at $60^{\circ}/sec$, ankle inversion, eversion, plantarflexion, and dorsiflexion $30^{\circ}/sec$ were conducted. Absolute IS (Nm), relative IS (Nm/kg), strength ratios, correlations between movements were observed. Significant differences in absolute and relative strength were observed between groups in all movement except in the relative ankle strength. Relative isokinetic strength ratios of hip flexion/extension were .45 and .55, knee flexion/extension were .84 and .89, ankle dorsi/plantarflexion were .30 and .29, and ankle eversion/inversion were .86 and .84 for men and women, respectively. In the hip extension, men had about three times the body weight, and women had about 2.5 times the strength. The abduction muscle had about 1.5 times the body weight of both men and women. Height and body weight showed the significantly strong correlating relationship with hip (r, .76-.86) and knee (r, .67-.84) strength. However, ankle strength showed the comparatively correlating relationship, especially in women (r, .03 - .36). Similar age and physique characteristics of female and male groups could provide useful isokinetic strength reference values for developing the exercise program for healthy and rehabilitation groups.