Good flexibility in the teen years for boys
can lower the risk of tension neck in adulthood, while
good endurance strength may do the same for girls, Finnish
researchers report.
Little is known about how physical fitness in adolescence
contributes to the likelihood of common muscle and bone
problems later on, such as lower back pain and knee injuries,
Dr. Lasse O. Mikkelsson of the Pajulahti Sports Center
in Nastola and colleagues note.
To investigate, they followed up with more than 1,000
men and women 25 years after they had completed tests
to evaluate strength and flexibility, in 1976, when they
were 12 to 17 years old. The researchers tested flexibility
by measuring participants' ability to reach forward while
sitting with straight, outstretched legs, and their endurance
by seeing how many sit-ups they could do in 30 seconds.
The follow-up included 520 men and 605 women, aged 37
to 42. Nearly 40 percent of women reported having tension
neck as adults, compared to about 15 percent of men, while
23 percent of men and 15 percent of women had low back
pain. Knee injury had occurred in 14 percent of men and
7 percent of women.
The men who were most flexible as teens were half as
likely to have tension neck as those who were the least
flexible, the researchers found. Women with the greatest
endurance strength in adolescence had a 34 percent lower
risk of tension neck than those with the least endurance
strength.
Physical activity during the teen years also appeared
to cut risk of later low back pain, while moderate activity
in adulthood resulted in reduced likelihood of low back
pain for women. The risk of tension neck and low back
pain grew as body mass increased for both men and women,
while greater BMI also increased women's risk of knee
injury.
The researchers also found that the men with the greatest
endurance strength in their youth had the greatest risk
of knee injury in later life, likely because these men
probably played more sports, which itself increases the
risk of knee damage, Mikkelsson and his team theorize.
SOURCE: British Journal of Sports Medicine, February
2006.
