Handgrip explosive force is correlated with mobility in the elderly women

The analysis of explosive force, through rate of force development (RFD) and contractile impulse (CI), from handgrip strength data seems to be useful and promising information to study the aging of musculoskeletal system and health status. We aimed to test the hypothesis that, in elderly women, the handgrip explosive force could be better associated to the functional mobility than maximum handgrip strength. Handgrip strength and the performance of Timed Up & Go Test (TUG) were measured from sixty-five community-dwelling healthy elderly women. The average slope of the moment–time curve (Δ moment/Δ time) over the time interval of 0–200 ms relative to the onset of contraction was calculated to provide the RFD and CI. The highest strength achieved during the isometric contraction was used as maximum handgrip strength. Pearson correlations were used to assess the strength of the relationship between the handgrip strength parameters (Maximum strength and explosive force from 0–200 ms) and TUG test performance from older women. The correlation analysis showed that the TUG test performance was inversely correlated to the handgrip strength parameters, with better relationship with explosive force parameters. The handgrip explosive force seems to be a promising predictor of functional mobility of elderly women, since it showed a better relationship with functional mobility than maximum handgrip strength.