Handgrip Strength and its Association with Anthropometric Measurements at Different Anatomical Positions of Arm among Young Individuals

Abstract

Many studies have studied the relationships between handgrip strength and different Anthropometric variables. However, the hand anatomical position when measuring the handgrip strength was not clear in many studies. This study aims to investigate the relationship between the anthropometric measurements and the handgrip strength at different anatomical positions of the arm among young individuals. 59 young males and 41 females were asked to squeeze the hand dynamometer to their maximum capacity. The maximum handgrip force was recorded for 7 different arm anatomical positions. Using SPSS, an Independent student's t-test was used to compare male and female groups. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were used to determine the correlations between handgrip strength and the anthropometric measurements, weight, and BMI at different arm anatomical positions. Furthermore, the dominance weight was computed to determine the most important predictors of grip strength. Significant correlation between handgrip strength and height and weight at all positions and with hand length for all positions except when the arm was abducted and extended 180 ͦ at the shoulder joint and 180 ͦ at the elbow joint. Arm length, forearm length and handbreadth were also correlated to handgrip strength at three positions, when the arm was adducted with 90 ͦ forward at the elbow joint, when the Arm was abducted with 90 ͦ at the shoulder joint and 180 ͦ at the elbow, and when the arm was abducted with 90 ͦ at the shoulder joint and 90 ͦ at the elbow joint with the forearm perpendicular to the frontal plane. However, these correlations were different when males and females were considered separately. Furthermore, the results showed that the height followed by hand length had the highest prediction power of handgrip strength among young adults. The current results showed the importance of considering the different anatomical positions of the arm when studying the relationship between anthropometric measurements and hand grip strength.