Changes in abdominal muscle strength with respect to aging

It has been generally agreed that muscle strength decreases with advance of age in adulthood. In order to study the effect of aging in abdominal muscle strength, abdominal muscle strength, height, body weight and grip strength were measured in 144 healthy subjects aged from 20 to 88 years old. The abdominal muscle strength was measured using a grip dynamometer. Curve between aging and strength revealed that the abdominal muscle strength gradually decreased with aging during many decades, but rapidly decreased in the fifth decade and over in males and seventh decade and over in females. Among these data, significant correlations were observed between abdominal muscle strength and age (only in males; r = -0.64), abdominal muscle strength and grip strength (in males; r = 0.75, in females; r = 0.47), age and grip strength (in males; -0.72, in females; r = -0.60), and, age and height (in males; r = -0.55, in females; r = -0.46). The results suggest that decrease of abdominal muscle strength is due to aging, although the degree of the decrease is affected by the generation studied. The method to measure abdominal muscle strength originally developed by us is easy and useful to understand changes of age-related muscular strength.