ABSTRACT
Strength is an important component of fitness in health and disease, because weak muscles may markedly limit a person’s physical fitness and daily physical abilities. To assess muscle strength in youths, tests such as sit ups, number of push ups, curls, standing long jump, etc., are often used in practice. These tests require multijoint movements and therefore they do not evaluate strength of the isolated muscle group. Testing of isokinetic strength provides an objective approach in diagnostics and simpler quantification of muscular strength in children. Nevertheless, in this field there are many gaps dealing with its manifestation among youths (Degache et al., 2010, Jones and Stratton, 2000). The goal of this study was to identify muscle strength of knee extensors (KE) and flexors (KF) in non-sporting primary school population and compare results in terms of intersexual differences, muscle group and speed of muscle contraction.
