A below-knee compression garment reduces fatigue-induced strength loss but not knee joint position sense errors

We examined the possibility that wearing a below-knee compression garment (CG) reduces fatigue-induced strength loss and joint position sense (JPS) errors in healthy adults.

Subjects (n = 24, age = 25.5 ± 4 years) were allocated to either one of the treatment groups that performed 100 maximal isokinetic eccentric contractions at 30°^-1 with the right-dominant knee extensors: (1) with (EXPCG) or (2) without CG (EXP) or to (3) a control group (CONCG: CG, no exercise). Changes in JPS errors, and maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) torque were measured immediately post-, 24 h post-, and 1 week post-intervention in each leg. All testing was done without the CG.

CG afforded no protection against JPS errors. Mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that absolute JPS errors increased post-intervention in EXPCG and EXP not only in the right-exercised (52%, p = 0.013; 57%, p = 0.007, respectively) but also in the left non-exercised (55%, p = 0.001; 58%, p = 0.040, respectively) leg. Subjects tended to underestimate the target position more in the flexed vs. extended knee positions (75-61°: - 4.6 ± 3.6°, 60-50°: - 4.2 ± 4.3°, 50-25°: - 2.9 ± 4.2°), irrespective of group and time. Moreover, MVIC decreased in EXP but not in EXPCG and CONCG at immediately post-intervention (p = 0.026, d = 0.52) and 24 h post-intervention (p = 0.013, d = 0.45) compared to baseline.

Altogether, a below-knee CG reduced fatigue-induced strength loss at 80° knee joint position but not JPS errors in healthy younger adults.