A behavioral mechanism of how increases in leg strength improve old adults' gait speed

We examined a behavioral mechanism of how increases in leg strength improve healthy old adults' gait speed. Leg press strength training improved maximal leg press load 40% (p = 0.001) and isometric strength in 5 group of leg muscles 32% (p = 0.001) in a randomly allocated intervention group of...

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Published inPloS one Vol. 9; no. 10; p. e110350
Main Authors Uematsu, Azusa, Tsuchiya, Kazushi, Kadono, Norio, Kobayashi, Hirofumi, Kaetsu, Takamasa, Hortobágyi, Tibor, Suzuki, Shuji
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Public Library of Science 13.10.2014
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects
Adults
Age
Age Factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging
Ankle
Behavioral plasticity
Biology and Life Sciences
Biomechanics
Exercise
Female
Females
Gait
Hip
Humans
Intervention
Isometric
Leg
Male
Medicine and Health Sciences
Muscle Strength
Muscles
Older people
Physical fitness
Physical training
Resistance Training
Strength
Strength training
Studies
Training
Walking
Weight training
Japan
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Summary:We examined a behavioral mechanism of how increases in leg strength improve healthy old adults' gait speed. Leg press strength training improved maximal leg press load 40% (p = 0.001) and isometric strength in 5 group of leg muscles 32% (p = 0.001) in a randomly allocated intervention group of healthy old adults (age 74, n = 15) but not in no-exercise control group (age 74, n = 8). Gait speed increased similarly in the training (9.9%) and control (8.6%) groups (time main effect, p = 0.001). However, in the training group only, in line with the concept of biomechanical plasticity of aging gait, hip extensors and ankle plantarflexors became the only significant predictors of self-selected and maximal gait speed. The study provides the first behavioral evidence regarding a mechanism of how increases in leg strength improve healthy old adults' gait speed.
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Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Conceived and designed the experiments: AU HK TH SS. Performed the experiments: AU KT NK HK TK. Analyzed the data: AU KT NK TK. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AU KT NK TH. Contributed to the writing of the manuscript: AU KT NK HK TK TH SS.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0110350