Impact of trunk muscle endurance on static balance and gender difference among physiotherapy students in Chennai- A Double blinded study

Introduction and Aim: Trunk muscle fatigue contributes to spinal instability over strenuous and prolonged physical tasks and therefore may lead to a injury. However from a performance perspective, the relation between endurance efficient core muscle and optimal balance control has not been well known. The muscles of the core help in controlling the movements transfer of energy, shifting the body weight and distributing the stress of weight bearing areas. Hence core muscle training has a significant role in spinal stability. The aim was to analyse the relationship between the trunk muscle endurance and static balance and also the relationship between trunk muscle endurance and static balance among male and female population. Materials and Methods: In this observational study, 400 subjects were included based on the inclusion criteria. In which 200 male and 200 female students inhabitant of faculty of physiotherapy in Dr. MGR Educational and research institute took part voluntarily in the study for the duration of 8 months. The single leg stance test, Sorensen test, trunk flexor endurance test, side bridge exercise test are used as outcome measures. Results: In females, for the extensor and lateral endurance, the correlation significance is found to be p?0.05 with respect to static balance. But in males the positive correlation is found to be only between the extensor and lateral endurance with static balance. On comparing the results of males and female subjects on the endurance and static balance test, highly significant difference (p?0.001) is found between trunk flexor, trunk lateral endurance and static balance. Conclusion: This study proves that the trunk extensor and lateral endurance associated with the static balance in males. In females, the trunk muscle endurance (flexor, extensor and lateral endurance) predicts the static balance. Among the three trunk muscle endurance, the trunk extensor highly predicts the static balance than others in both the genders.