Gender and age differences in absolute and relative handgrip strength of the Turkish population aged 8–27 years

Abstract

We aimed to investigate the impact of anthropometric variables on absolute and relative hand grip strength (HGS) and associations among them in gender-specific age groups and also to evaluate normative HGS values adjusted to body mass index (BMI), fat free mass (FFM) and fat free mass index (FFMI) in healthy subjects as a function of age group and gender. A total of 567 volunteers (n=271 boys, 10.89±1.16 years, and n=296 girls, 10.86±1.07 years) participated in this study. Three consecutive trials for both hands were performed; the highest value was used as the HGS. There were no significant differences between genders in both anthropometric and strength values except FFM, FFMI and left-side grip strength (LSGS) in the 8–12 age group even though HGS values were normalized. FFM (r=0.80, r=0.86, p<0.01) and FFMI (r=0.57, r=0.76, p<0.01) had strong relationship with HGS in both females and males, respectively. The results of this study show that both age-dependent increases in HGS and gender differences are strongly associated with changes in FFM and FFMI. For this purpose, we suggest using FFM or FFMI-corrected HGS values to compare or constitute standard data as a guide for practitioners when interpreting grip strength measurements.