Abstract
The purpose of this study was to compare the tibial control system (TCS) and sliding cuff (SC) lever arms in the strength parameters peak torque (PT), average work (AW), average power (AP), joint angle at peak torque (JA), and fatigue index (FI). Fifteen healthy subjects, with no history of knee pathology, performed three knee extension/flexion repetitions using the right leg at a velocity spectrum of 60, 180, 240, and 20 repetitions at 300 deg/sec for each lever arm. TCS and SC were randomly presented with 24 hours between conditions. Significance was set at p < 0.05. Paired t tests showed that the SC produced significantly greater PT, AW, and AP than the TCS during extension across velocities. Also, SC JA occurred significantly later in the range of motion across velocities, whereas FI was significantly greater for the SC than the TCS at 300 deg/sec. Paired t tests for flexion data indicated that the TCS produced significantly greater PT than the SC across velocities and greater AP at 60 deg/sec. The SC condition resulted in significantly greater AW and AP at 300 deg/sec only. The SC and TCS conditions did not differ for JA and FI across velocities. It was concluded that choice of lever arm significantly influenced the strength parameters examined in this study.