ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on differences between young women and men in voluntary muscle strength and endurance and evoked muscle contractile properties. Gender differences in voluntary strength have received the most study and, therefore, comprise a major portion of the chapter. For many years, muscle strength was measured almost exclusively with isometric dynamometers. In the 1970s, isokinetic dynamometers increasingly became available, allowing concentric contraction strength to be measured at various velocities. More recently, the introduction of dynamometers with an eccentric loading feature has produced a growing literature on eccentric strength. As a result of these developments in strength-testing methodology, gender differences in strength now can be studied in all contraction types and in a wide range of velocities. There also are studies that have addressed gender differences in a particular coupling of eccentric and concentric contractions, known as the stretch-shorten cycle.
