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de Freitas C.1, Civile V.1, Dantas L.A.1,2
1Universidade Paulista, Instituto de Ciências e Saúde, São Paulo, Brazil, 2Hospital Santa Marcelina, Fisioterapia, São Paulo, Brazil
Background: There are few studies that describe the subject studied in this work. It has been shown to be a correlation between the external oblique muscle and the peak expiratory flow and lack of correlation with transverse abdominal muscle in smaller samples. Contraction of the transverse abdominal muscle generates increased intra-abdominal pressure which could lead to an increase in peak expiratory flow, in addition, literature describes that increased activation of the transverse abdominal occurs at maximum expiration.
Purpose: The aim of this study is to correlate the activation of the transverse abdominal muscle and the peak expiratory flow.
Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. A total of 129 volunteers (18-50 years), women and men, not physically active. Before assessing, individuals were taught how to perform the transverse abdominal muscle activation and the use of the peak expiratory flow meter. The evaluations were performed through Stabilizer® and Peak Flow Meter® devices to measure the activation of the transverse abdominal muscle and peak expiratory flow, respectively. Each evaluation was performed three times and was considered the greatest value.
Analysis: Descriptive statistical analysis and Pearson correlation test. Significance level adopted was 0,05. The data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel and BioEstat 5.0 software.
Results: 129 sedentary individuals, 52 men with a mean age of 26.25 ± 7.31 years and 77 women with an average age of 24.32 ± 5.51 years. The group showed an average transverse abdominal activation of 9.7 ± 5.28 mmHg and peak expiratory flow of 468 ± 104.28 L / min.The studied group showed a weak positive correlation (r = 0.29) significant (p = 0.00). The group of women showed a positive weak correlation
(r = 0.14), not significant (p = 0.19) and male group showed a weak positive correlation (r = 0.23), not significant (p = 0. 10).
Conclusion(s): This study presented a weak correlation between the activation of the transverse abdominal muscle and the peak expiratory flow in healthy individuals.The weak correlation obtained in the total group, could be justified by the fact that the peak expiratory flow requires abdominal muscles one phasic behavior by quickly contraction and the transverse muscle is a tonic postural muscle with characteristics of slow contraction.
Implications: The clinical implication of the present study, despite weak correlation between the transverse abdominal muscle activation and peak expiratory flow, is that a specific training of the transverse abdominal in individuals with changes in peak expiratory flow could benefit them in conjunction with the training of more superficial muscles, which could interfere directly in the cough mechanism.
Funding acknowledgements: The work was unfunded.
Topic: Cardiorespiratory
Ethics approval: Ethics committee Universidade Paulista, protocol number 084825/2015 ; September, 2015.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
