Oxygenation and blood volume in skeletal muscle in response to external force

Abstract

Oxygenation and blood volume in skeletal muscle have been used to evaluate muscle contraction force. This paper aims to reveal the correlations between local oxygenation, blood volume and external force. Eight subjects performed isometric elbow flexion exercise of different force levels and isokinetic elbow exercise. In isometric exercise, oxygenation and blood volume indices were significantly correlated with joint torques; and their relationships could be described by linear equations. Compared with the oxygenation rate, the change of blood volume between rest and muscle contraction was more suitable to evaluate static muscle contraction force than oxygenation. In isokinetic exercise, blood volume demonstrated obvious periodicity in different motion cycles, and had low correlations with joint moments. Oxygenation indices demonstrated obvious differences between the five motion cycles. In conclusion, blood volume was found to be suitable to estimate the static and dynamic muscle contraction force, and validate musculoskeletal system biomechanical model. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.