Peripheral Muscle Strength

Introduction

It is a well known fact that muscles contribute to the strength of a person, but little attention is given to an individual oxygen consumption and lung capacity as a factor of strength. This is interesting because it provide an alternative view to the popular view of the factors that strength is derived from--primarily muscles. Oxygen consumption and capacity of an individual is primarily emphasized and valued in activities such as running or as a factor of cardiac health, but it has not popularly been attributed as a factor of strength. Research on cardiac patients has been performed which resulted in the conclusion of “...the increase in MVO2 index after surgery was significantly greater for peripheral muscle strength of the

dominant hand when compared to non-dominant…” (Sokran, Mohan, Kamaruddin, Sulaiman, Awang, Othman, and Victor). My research will primarily focus on the correlation of Oxygen and Lung Capacity in relation with strength as seen in University Students.

Materials and Methods

Students will participate in both the Grip Strength Lab and Lung Capacity Lab. In order to properly examine the ability of oxygen intake as a variable of Strength, individuals of similar muscle mass will be selected--one smoker, and other a non smoker. This experiment will be repeat with many more pairs of test subjects and will be viewed on the database to properly ensure that outliers are evened out as much as possible to ensure the accuracy of the results.

I will test my hypothesis by examining the grip strength data collected by University Students who identify as smokers and