Search

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the factors associated with physical fitness and disparities in population segments among older adults, using data from the National Physical Fitness Surveilling Survey of China. Study design: A cross-sectional study. Methods: A total of 13524 older adults aged 60–79 years were involved in the study. Participants completed physical fitness assessments encompassing body fat percentage, lung capacity, high leg raise in place, grip strength, seated forward bending, 30-s sit-to-stand test, single-leg standing with eyes closed, and choice reaction time. A profile analysis model was constructed by feature extraction, label design and clustering using principal component analysis and k-prototypes. Factors associated with physical fitness were analyzed using ordered probit regression, and within-group differences were evaluated through the bootstrap method. Results: The older adults were categorized into four clusters based on the clustering results (Cluster I: n = 2728, Cluster II: n = 6067, Cluster III: n = 4189, Cluster IV: n = 540). Significant positive associations were identified between moderate-to-vigorous transport-related activities (α = 0.001, p

The present study examined the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) using Halo Sport on the time to exhaustion (TTE) in relation with muscle activities and corticomuscular coupling of agonist and antagonist muscles during a sustained isometric fatiguing contraction performed with the elbow flexors. Twenty healthy male college students were randomly assigned to tDCS group and control group. The two group participants performed two experimental sessions which consisted of pre-fatigue isometric maximal voluntary contraction (MVC), sustained submaximal voluntary contractions (30% maximal torque) performed to exhaustion, and post-fatigue MVC with the right elbow flexor muscles. Sham stimulation (90 s) and tDCS (20 min) were applied for control and tDCS group participants 20 min prior to the second session test, respectively. MVC strength in pre- and post-fatigue test, TTE, electroencephalogram (EEG), and electromyography (EMG) of biceps brachii (BB) and triceps brachii (TB) were recorded during the tests. It was found that tDCS using the Halo Sport device significantly increased TTE and thus improved muscular endurance performance. The improvement may be partly related to the improvement of neuromuscular efficiency as reflected by decrease of antagonistic muscle coactivation activities, which may be related to cortical originated central processing mechanism of neuromuscular activities.