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Non-linear growth trends of toe flexor muscle strength among children, adolescents, and young adults: a cross-sectional study

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Abstract

Purpose

There are only a few studies on the muscular strength of the foot in children and adolescents; thus, the developmental pattern and normative data of these populations during growth are unclear. We sought to elucidate the developmental pattern of the foot muscle strength among children, adolescents, and young adults compared with that of the hand.

Methods

A total of 747 children, adolescents, and young adults participated in this study, and their maximum isometric toe flexor strength (TFS), hand grip strength (HGS), and foot length were measured.

Results

TFS was correlated with HGS (r = 0.785), age (r = 0.659), height (r = 0.757), body mass (r = 0.737), and foot length (r = 0.594). Multiple regression analyses revealed that TFS was correlated with age (β = 0.243 in boys; β = 0.461 in girls), squared value of age (age2; β = − 0.296 in boys; β = − 0.260 in girls), and body mass (β = 0.256 in boys; β = 0.311 in girls) in both sexes, indicating a non-linear relationship between age and TFS development. In a regression model for HGS, age was a significant variable, but not age2. HGS increased linearly from childhood until young adulthood, whereas TFS increased from childhood until adolescence and then levelled off.

Conclusion

Our results demonstrate that TFS has a different developmental pattern compared with HGS.

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Abbreviations

Age2 :

Squared value of age

BM:

Body mass

BM2 :

Squared value of body mass

Height2 :

Squared value of height

HGS:

Hand grip strength

PHV:

Peak height velocity

rHGS:

Relative hand grip strength

rTFS:

Relative toe flexor strength

TFS:

Toe flexor strength

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Acknowledgements

We thank all children and teachers who cooperated with us for this study. The present study was partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C; #22500619) for H. S.; for Young Scientists (B; #24700631 and # 23700688) for M.O., T.K, respectively; for Young Scientists (A; #23680066) for J.Y.; for Exploratory Research (#24650408) for J.Y. from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.

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Author notes

  1. Noriteru Morita and Junichiro Yamauchi have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sport Education, Hokkaido University of Education, Iwamizawa, Hokkaido, Japan

    Noriteru Morita, Tomoyasu Okuda, Noriyuki Shide & Hisashi Shinkaiya

  2. Graduate School of Human Health Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1-1 Minami-osawa, Hachioji, Tokyo, 192-0397, Japan

    Junichiro Yamauchi

  3. Research Center in Back, Neck, Other Joint Pain and Human Performance (BNOJPH), Faculty of Associated Medical Sciences, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand

    Junichiro Yamauchi

  4. Graduate School of Education, Hokkaido University of Education, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

    Ryosuke Fukuoka

  5. Faculty of Sport and Health Science, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu, Japan

    Toshiyuki Kurihara & Mitsuo Otsuka

  6. Department of Teacher Training, Hokkaido University of Education, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

    Isao Kambayashi

Authors
  1. Noriteru Morita
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  2. Junichiro Yamauchi
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  3. Ryosuke Fukuoka
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  4. Toshiyuki Kurihara
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  5. Mitsuo Otsuka
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  6. Tomoyasu Okuda
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  7. Noriyuki Shide
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  8. Isao Kambayashi
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  9. Hisashi Shinkaiya
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Contributions

All of authors satisfied the following area of authorship requirements: NM: manuscript writing, concept and study design, data acquisition, data analysis, and interpretation. JY: manuscript writing, concept and study design, data acquisition, data analysis, and interpretation. RF: concept and study design, data acquisition, data analysis, and interpretation. TK: concept and study design, data acquisition, data analysis, and interpretation. MO: concept and study design, data acquisition, data analysis, and interpretation. TO: concept and study design, data acquisition, data analysis, and interpretation. NS: concept and study design, data acquisition, data analysis, and interpretation. IK: concept and study design, data acquisition, data analysis, and interpretation. HS: concept and study design, data acquisition, and significant manuscript reviewer/reviser.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Junichiro Yamauchi.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

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Communicated by Guido Ferretti.

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Morita, N., Yamauchi, J., Fukuoka, R. et al. Non-linear growth trends of toe flexor muscle strength among children, adolescents, and young adults: a cross-sectional study. Eur J Appl Physiol 118, 1003–1010 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-018-3827-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-018-3827-x

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