Isokinetic strength and endurance and muscle fiber type of elite oarswomen.

Knee extension (KE) and elbow flexion (EF) isokinetic strength (at angular velocities of 0, 1.05, 2.09, 3.14 and 4.19 rad sec-1) and fatigue (strength loss over 50 isokinetic contractions) were examined in ten elite oarswomen and ten untrained subjects. Muscle fiber types of the corresponding muscles were determined for the oarswomen. The oarswomen had a lower slow twitch percentage than previously reported values for oarsmen, which is consistent with the shorter duration of the women's competitive race. A marked similarity was found between untrained subjects and oarswomen in 1) the patterns of the torque velocity curves of the strength measurements and 2) the patterns of the fatigue curves of the isokinetic endurance measurements. Although the patterns were similar, the entire curves for the oarswomen were displaced upward. For each group, however, the patterns of both the KE torque velocity and the isokinetic fatigue curves differed from the patterns of the corresponding curves for EF. These differences are likely due to inherent morphological or physiological characteristics of the two muscle groups.