Sex differences in human skeletal muscle fatigue are eliminated under ischemic conditions

Abstract

Several studies have suggested that women may be more resistant to muscle fatigue than men (Fulco CS, Rock PB, Muza SA, Lammi E, Cymerman A, Butterfield G, Moore, LG, Braun B, and Lewis SF. Acta Physiol Scand 167: 233–239, 1999) possibly because of differences in muscle oxidative metabolism. We evaluated muscle fatigue produced by intermittent, maximal volitional isometric contractions of the dorsiflexor muscles of healthy young (21–34 yr) men ( n = 8) and women ( n = 8) under two conditions: free-flow (FF) circulation and ischemia. Measures of voluntary and stimulated (10- and 50-Hz) force, central activation ratio (CAR), and compound muscle action potential (CMAP) were collected in each session. The ischemic protocol induced greater fatigue than the FF protocol, in both sexes, and was associated with greater reductions in CAR, CMAP, stimulated force, and the ratio of 10- to 50-Hz force compared with the FF condition. Women fatigued less than men in FF but not during ischemia, and this difference was roughly paralleled by a difference in CAR. No sex effects on the CMAP, tetanic force, and measures of excitation-contraction coupling function were found in the FF condition, suggesting that the primary mechanism behind the difference in fatigue was a relatively greater impairment of central activation in men. The observation that ischemia eliminated the sex differences in fatigue is consistent with a number of studies (Kent-Braun JA, Ng AV, Doyle JW, and Towse TF. J Appl Physiol93: 1813–1823, 2002) relating fatigue to muscle metabolism and might be the result of sex-based differences in metabolic pathway utilization during muscle contraction.