Muscle Fatigue
Do women or men experience fatigue more quickly while exercising?
To investigate this issue, researchers recruited healthy young
adults to participate in a study (Hunter et al., 2004). The
researchers first measured the strength of each person by the
torque exerted at the wrist during a maximal voluntary contraction.
Then they matched up each of the
men in the study with a woman of comparable strength (within
of the maximal torque exerted). Next, they asked each subject to
complete a prescribed series of exercises with their elbow flexor
muscles and elbow extensor muscles until they lacked the strength
to continue. Researchers recorded how long it took before failure
at this exercise task for each subject.
a. Calculate the correlation coefficient
between time until muscle fatigue for men and time until muscle
fatigue for women.
Round your answer to three decimal places.
b. Comment on what this correlation coefficient
suggests about whether men and women of similar strength tend to
have similar times until muscle fatigue.
The correlation coefficient suggests there is
a
moderate, positive associationa strong, positive associationa weak,
negative associationno associationa moderate, negative associationa
strong, negative associationa weak, positive association
between fatigue times.
