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The relationship of gluteus medius strength and endurance to stability, targeting and agility

PURPOSE: To examine gluteus medius strength and endurance in relation to lower limb stability, targeting and agility.
METHODS: 57 participants performed isometric and dynamic gluteus medius strength and endurance tests of both lower limbs. Lower limb dominance was determined using the Waterloo Footedness Questionnaire-Revised (WFQ-R). Strength and endurance of gluteus medius were compared to single-leg performance of a stork stand, a lateral foot targeting task and a hopping test of agility.
RESULTS: Body mass normalized isometric gluteus medius strength was found to be weakly and inversely correlated to agility score for both dominant limbs (r=-0.262, p=0.026) and non-dominant limbs (r=-0.335, p=0.006) with a lower agility score indicating better agility performance. For non-dominant limbs only, body mass normalized isometric gluteus medius strength correlated negatively to targeting speed (r=-0.229, p=0.045) and isometric gluteus medius endurance measured as percentage drop in strength over time correlated weakly and positively to the amount of body sway demonstrated during a single-leg stork stand task (r=0.253, p=0.030).
CONCLUSION: Gluteus medius strength may be weakly related to improved agility performance while gluteus medius endurance may weakly relate to improved single-leg static balance performance. It is likely that other factors such as neuromuscular training have a much larger influence on stability, targeting ability and agility than the strength and endurance of the hip abductors alone.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MANITOBA/oai:mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca:1993/23503
Date14 April 2014
CreatorsStobart, Lori P. Graumann
ContributorsKriellaars, Dean (Medical Rehabilitation) Shay, Barbara (Medical Rehabilitation), MacNeil, Brian (Medical Rehabilitation) Doupe, Malcolm (Community Health Sciences)
Source SetsUniversity of Manitoba Canada
Detected LanguageEnglish

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