Isometric strength and endurance during the menstrual cycle

Abstract

Seven healthy young women, 3 of whom had been taking oral contraceptives, were examined during the course of 2 menstrual cycles to assess their isometric strength, their endurance during a series of 5 fatiguing isometric contractions at a tension of 40% MVC, and their blood pressures and heart rates during those fatiguing contractions. Two sets of experiments were performed, one in which the subject's forearm temperature was allowed to vary as a function of T _A , and one with the muscle temperature stabilized by immersion of the forearm in water at 37‡ C. During exposure to ambient temperatures, isometric strength and both the heart rate and blood pressure responses at rest and at the end of a fatiguing, sustained isometric exercise, were not significantly different during any phase of the menstrual cycle in any subject. In contrast, the isometric endurance in the women not taking oral contraceptives varied sinusoidally in all 5 contractions with a peak endurance midway through the ovulatory phase and the lowest endurance mid-way through the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. The isometric endurance of the women taking oral contraceptives did not vary during their menstrual cycle. After stabilization of the temperature of the muscles of the forearm in water at 37‡ C, the isometric endurance of the “normal” subjects showed a hyperbolic response with the maximal endurance at the beginning and end of their cycles, and the shortest endurance at mid-cycle. Here again, however, the isometric endurance of the women taking oral contraceptives did not vary after immersion of their forearms in the 37‡ C water.