Abstract
The aim of the study was to assess the effect of alcohol ingestion on isokinetic knee strength during extension and flexion. Alcohol ingestion may impair some psychomotor skills - such as reaction time, coordination, accuracy and balance.
It seems that there is no effect of alcohol ingestion on strength and power. Some articles reported the decrease of strength and bicycle performance after alcohol ingestion.
The knee strength is one of the basic skills for the lower limbs performance. Fifteen athletes from sports school (age 22-26 years, body mass 78.5+-8.0 kg, and height 1.79+-0.7 m) took part in the study.
In random cross-over design, alcohol mixed with juice (0.6 ml of vodka with 37.5 % alcohol per 1 kg fat free mass) was served orally to the athletes. The specific isokinetic knee strength was measured on the dynamometer Cybex Humac Norm in three angular velocities (60, 180, 240o/s).
We measured the peak torque, total work, average power and time to peak after alcohol ingestion and no ingestion. The isokinetic ankle strength increased with alcohol ingestion with statistical differences (p<0.5) for knee flexion for peak torque and for total work (60, 180 and 240o/s), average power (60 and 180o/s).
The time to peak torque in flexion have no statistical differences with a without alcohol. The difference of time to peak in extension was statistical decrease value for angular velocity 240o/s.
We did assess the statistical differences for the other knee extension parameters. The alcohol ingestion had only the effect on knee isokinetic flexion strength but no effect on extension knee strength.
After 30 min after alcohol ingestion increase the value of some parameters and have an excitation effect on knee extension. Difference demonstration of changes the knee strength are depended on the timing of alcohol serving.