Gregor Cankar, Boštjan Šimunič , Jörn Rittweger, and Rado Pišot, Institute of Kinesiology Research, Science and Research Centre of Koper, University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia, Institute for Biomedical Research into Human Movement and Health, Manchester Metropolitan, University, UK
Abstract
Physical – sport inactivity is often associated with loss of muscle mass, positive energy balance, fat gain,
injuries, motor incompetence, and many others negative effects. The goal of this study was to evaluate
loss of muscle function and performance as a response to total physical inactivity. Ten healthy male
volunteers (age: 23.3 ± 2.2 years; body height: 179 ± 7.1 cm; body mass: 75.2 ± 9.3 kg) were measured
before and after 35 days of horizontal bed rest. Energy intake was adapted from the beginning of the bed
rest and associated with weekly changes in body mass and fat mass. Peak muscle power and maximal
jump height was measured during vertical jump test, performed before and after bed rest. Maximum
jumping power and jumping height decreased significantly after bed rest, for 10 W·kg-1 (19.2 %;
P<0.001) and 11.2 (22 %; P<0.001), respectively. Inter subjects’ variability of the jumping height results
was in the range from 8.6 % to 49.1 % and for jumping height from 6.8 % to 31.3 %. Results of this study
confirm that vertical jump test demands vigorous human performance and should be conducted after bed
rest studies in special care and considering huge inter subject variability in designing studies.
Keywords: bed rest, skeletal muscle, vertical jump, jump power, jump height
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