Effect Of Eccentric Training And Isolytic Contraction To Improve Flexibility Of Quadriceps In Recreational Marathoners.

Life Sciences-Physiotherapy

Abstract

In the field of athletics, running is one of the most popular activities having beneficial health effects as well as negative effects during  sports  injury.  Not only elite marathoners,  but recreational  marathoners  have various  lower  limb musculoskeletal  injuries   that occur quite frequently   which   produces  an adverse  effect over the performance  of the   marathoners.  Studies  have suggested  that the most common  muscles  that were affected  were quadriceps  group  of muscles  as well as the hamstrings  muscles.  The main mechanism behind the injury to the quadriceps  muscles  is the strong contraction  of the muscle against  the forced flexion  action  of the knee joint which  is commonly  seen  in runners  in a downhill  marathon.  Some  of the risk factors  that  are responsible  for the quadriceps  muscle strains are inadequate  stretching,  muscle imbalance  of the lower extremity  and inadequate  warm-up before vigorous exercise. Objective of this  study  was  to find  out  the  effect  of eccentric  training  and  whether  isolytic  contraction  helps  to improve  the  flexibility  of the quadriceps muscle and joint range of motion of knee as well as hip joint. A total of 30 subjects were selected for the study from Krishna College  of  Physiotherapy.  The  subjects  were  divided  into  two  groups  namely,  group  A and  group  B consisting  of  15  subjects  each. Demographic  data, assent and consent was taken from the marathoners  that were selected according  to the inclusion  criteria.  Pre and post assessment  was taken on the basis of both active  range  of motion  of the hip joint, active  range  of motion  of knee joint, Manual Muscle Test of the quadriceps  and Ely’s test for quadriceps  before and after 6 weeks (total 16 sessions)  of the treatment  respectively. The session lasted for a time period of  45 mins. After the data was collected,  evaluation  and interpretation  of collected data was done thoroughly.  The  subjects  under  the  eccentric  training  protocol  were  found  to have  more  effect  compared  to the ones  in the group consisting  of  isolytic  contraction  protocol.    The  conclusion  of  this  study  was  that  significant  effect  of  eccentric  training  and  isolytic contraction helps to improve the flexibility of the quadriceps muscle and joint range of motion.