A below-knee compression garment reduces fatigue-induced strength loss but not knee joint position sense errors.

PURPOSE: We examined the possibility that wearing a below-knee compression garment (CG) reduces fatigue-induced strength loss and joint position sense (JPS) errors in healthy adults.

METHODS

Subjects (n = 24, age = 25.5 ± 4 years) were allocated to either one of the treatment groups that performed 100 maximal isokinetic eccentric contractions at 30°-1 with the right-dominant knee extensors: (1) with (EXPCG) or (2) without CG (EXP) or to (3) a control group (CONCG: CG, no exercise). Changes in JPS errors, and maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) torque were measured immediately post-, 24 h post-, and 1 week post-intervention in each leg. All testing was done without the CG.

RESULTS

CG afforded no protection against JPS errors. Mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that absolute JPS errors increased post-intervention in EXPCG and EXP not only in the right-exercised (52%, p = 0.013; 57%, p = 0.007, respectively) but also in the left non-exercised (55%, p = 0.001; 58%, p = 0.040, respectively) leg. Subjects tended to underestimate the target position more in the flexed vs. extended knee positions (75-61°: - 4.6 ± 3.6°, 60-50°: - 4.2 ± 4.3°, 50-25°: - 2.9 ± 4.2°), irrespective of group and time. Moreover, MVIC decreased in EXP but not in EXPCG and CONCG at immediately post-intervention (p = 0.026, d = 0.52) and 24 h post-intervention (p = 0.013, d = 0.45) compared to baseline.

CONCLUSION

Altogether, a below-knee CG reduced fatigue-induced strength loss at 80° knee joint position but not JPS errors in healthy younger adults.