Avaliação da força máxima isométrica de roteadores internos e externos do ombro de tenistas juvenis

Abstract

Several studies with athletes who use the shoulder girdle in a specific manner have been published in recent years, indicating a muscle imbalance in the shoulder joint. This muscle imbalance could cause injuries in this joint. The subject and approaches have created a growing interest .The objective was to quantify the values of maximum isometric strength of internal and external rotators of the shoulder and to determine the difference in strength between the dominant and non-dominant limb. The sample consisted of 9 tennis players of competition at the state level, all male from a youth team, aged between 15 to 18 years. An equipment that consists of a table with a swivel support to measure the maximum isometric strength of internal and external rotators of the shoulder, and a load cell with a capacity of 500 kgf. The tests were bilateral with 3 attempts for each movement and with 5 seconds of duration. It was detected a significant difference (P ≤ 0.05) between the average values of maximum isometric strength of the internal rotators (Right-19.88 ± 2.34; Left-12.0 ± 1.22) and external rotators (Right-16.58 ± 2.94; Left-11.23 ± 1.90) of the shoulder and also relative to the dominant limb (right shoulder) when compared with the non-dominant (left shoulder). The results found in this study show a difference between the values of maximum isometric strength of internal and external rotators of the upper limb and greater strength of the dominant limb compared with values of the non dominant.