Factors associated with hand grip strength in martial arts

Abstract

Backgound: Handgrip strength is an important metric used in sports and helps measure athletes' conditions. It is affected by many factors, including athletes’ age, body weight, skills, or years of training. Unfortunately, at least in martial arts, associations among those factors are not apparent. Methods: In the study, 178 athletes training in martial arts (Jujitsu and Karate) were evaluated for their age, years of training, body weight, and skills (belt grade). HGS was measured via the dynamometric measurement of hand force. Moderation analysis was employed to evaluate the relationships between athletes’ body weight and handgrip strength and between athletes’ skills and handgrip strength. Results:It was shown that athletes’ body weight and HGS are moderated preferentially by athletes’ age and then by years of training. It was demonstrated that HGS could be improved by athletes younger than 52 years old. Years of training also moderate the relationship, but the moderation is limited to 39 years of training. The relationship between athletes’ skills and HGS is illustrated by moderated moderation, where triple interaction among skills, age and years of training can explain an additional 12.9% of the HGS variance. Conclusions: The presented study may be used to evaluate relationships between numerous variables associated with HGS and could be vital for constructing statistical models for trainers' purposes.