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PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Exercise Physiology
Volume 7 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1472712
This article is part of the Research Topic Insights and Reviews In Movement Science View all 17 articles
It's time to re-evaluate the reporting of common measures from isokinetic dynamometers: Isokinetic for torque, isotonic for power
Provisionally accepted- Utah State University, Logan, United States
Isokinetic dynamometry is commonly used to provide an objective and reliable assessment of muscle function across a variety of clinical, athletic and research settings. Important muscle function variables that are commonly assessed are torque-and power-related measures. Isokinetic mode is overwhelmingly used to provide these variables, and has been so for decades; however, this mode may not be the best suited to examine power variables. The article aims to explore this issue through conceptual evaluation and empirical results using unpublished data. The implication is that due to the almost complete lack of unique information that power provides additional to torque in isokinetic mode, the isotonic mode is better suited to assess power for functional, operational, and methodological reasons. Thus, muscle function tests on an isokinetic dynamometer provide more fitting and useful data when isokinetic mode is used to determine torque measures, and isotonic mode is used to provide power measures.
Keywords: strength, muscle function, Biodex, Muscle assessment, Peak torque, Mean torque
Received: 29 Jul 2024; Accepted: 20 Jan 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Thompson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Brennan J. Thompson, Utah State University, Logan, United States
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