A Novel Assessment of Flexibility by Microcirculatory Signals

Jian-Guo Bau,Yu-Fang Chung,Taipau Chia,Kun-Hao Chen,Shyi-Kuen Wu

doi:10.3390/s140100478

Jian-Guo Bau, Yu-Fang Chung + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/s140100478

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Abstract

Flexibility testing is one of the most important fitness assessments. It is generally evaluated by measuring the range of motion (RoM) of body segments around a joint center. This study presents a novel assessment of flexibility in the microcirculatory aspect. Eighteen college students were recruited for the flexibility assessment. The flexibility of the leg was defined according to the angle of active ankle dorsiflexion measured by goniometry. Six legs were excluded, and the remaining thirty legs were categorized into two groups, group H (n = 15 with higher flexibility) and group L (n = 15 with lower flexibility), according to their RoM. The microcirculatory signals of the gastrocnemius muscle on the belly were monitored by using Laser-Doppler Flowmetry (LDF) with a noninvasive skin probe. Three indices of nonpulsatile component (DC), pulsatile component (AC) and perfusion pulsatility (PP) were defined from the LDF signals after signal processing. The results revealed that both the DC and AC values of the group H that demonstrated higher stability underwent muscle stretching. In contrast, these indices of group L had interferences and became unstable during muscle stretching. The PP value of group H was a little higher than that of group L. These primary findings help us to understand the microcirculatory physiology of flexibility, and warrant further investigations for use of non-invasive LDF techniques in the assessment of flexibility.

Highlights

Physical health is usually assessed according to some health-related fitness components, like a morphological component, a muscular component, a motor component, a cardiorespiratory component and a metabolic component [1,2]
Since the microvascular perfusion function may be associated with muscle flexibility, the aim of this study is to develop convenient indices for the assessment of muscle flexibility by analyzing the characteristics of blood perfusion determined by non-invasive Laser-Doppler Flowmetry (LDF) technique during different muscle stretching and relaxed states
The reliability of LDF during baseline was high for the measurements in both groups, with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) = 0.99 and ICC = 0.99 for group H

Summary

Introduction

Physical health is usually assessed according to some health-related fitness components, like a morphological component, a muscular component, a motor component, a cardiorespiratory component and a metabolic component [1,2] Among these components, the assessment of muscular components provides health information about muscles or muscle groups. As muscular flexibility is an important aspect of health, muscle tightness is frequently postulated as an intrinsic risk factor in the development of a common muscular dysfunction. This disorder is often accompanied by pain, muscle weakness, and restricted range of motion. Maintaining normal muscle length requires regular stretching to prevent muscle stiffness and benefit from the decreased risk of musculoskeletal injuries and enhance exercise performance [5,6]

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