Avaliação da força máxima isométrica de roteadores internos e externos do ombro de tenistas juvenis

Several studies with athletes who use the shoulder girdle in a spe cific manner have been published in recent years, indicating a muscle imbalance in the shoulde r joint. This muscle imbalance could cause injuries in this joint. The subject and approac hes have created a growing interest .The objective was to quantify the values of maximum isomet ric strength of internal and external rotators of the shoulder and to determine the differenc e in strength between the dominant and non-dominant limb. The sample consisted of 9 tennis players of competition at the state level, all male from a youth team, aged between 15 to 18 y ears. An equipment that consists of a table with a swivel support to measure the maximum sometric strength of internal and external rotators of the shoulder, and a load cell with a capacity of 500 kgf. The test s wer bilateral with 3 attempts for each movement and with 5 seconds of uration. It was detected a significant difference (P ≤ 0.05) between the average values of maximum isometric strengt h of the internal rotators (Right-19.88 ± 2.34; Left-12.0 ± 1.22) and external rot ato s (Right-16.58 ± 2.94; Left-11.23 ± 1.90) of the shoulder and also relative to the dominant li mb (right shoulder) when compared with the non-dominant (left shoulder). The results found in thi s study show a difference between the values of maximum isometric strength of internal and external rotators of the upper limb and greater strength of the dominant limb compared wi th values of the nondominant.