Effect of gender, muscle type and skinfold thickness on myometric parameters in young people

Background. The aim of the study was to compare the mechanical properties of three human skeletal muscles: biceps brachii (BB), rectus femoris (RF), and tibialis anterior (TA) at rest measured by myoton device in males (n = 16, mean age 21.2 +/- 0.6 years) and females (n = 16; 21.2 +/- 0.9 years) and to investigate the influence of skin and subcutaneous tissue thickness (skinfold thickness, SFT) and gender on myometric parameters of the three skeletal muscles. Methods. We measured the following mechanical and viscoelastic muscle properties using MyotonPRO (R) : frequency (F [Hz]), decrement (D [log]), stiffness (S [N/m]), relaxation time (R [ms]) and creepability (C [De]). The values of SFT for all selected muscles were assessed by caliper. A mixed-design analysis of variance with gender as between subject comparison was used for assessing the differences between gender and muscles in SFT and each of the myometric parameters separately (F, D, S, R and C). Pearson correlation coefficient or Spearman's rank correlation coefficient between SFT and myometric parameters was conducted for males, females and males and females together. The level of statistical significance was set at alpha