The Effect of Mental Practice on Increasing Maximal Muscle Strength in 20-30 year old Healthy women

Backgrond: Researches have been carried out for several years, to find a way to treat muscular disorders, including weakness and atrophy which are consequences of the lack of movements. Clinicians are looking for a way to prevent these weaknesses and atrophies specially, when active movements are forbidden. It seems that mental practice can be a good answer to this problem. The aim of this study was to identify the efficacy of this kind of exercises on increasing muscle strength. This study was performed on 30 young healthy females (20-30 years old), who were randomly divided into case and control groups. The case group performed imaginary maximal contractions of the elbow extensors for 3 weeks while the control group performed mathematical exercises at the same period of time. The amount of muscle extension torque of elbow was determined by Isostation B200 Dynamometer, before and after the intervention. The statistic analysis was performed with non-parametric tests of Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon. Mental practice of strengthening tasks produced 50 percent increase in the isometric torque of elbow extension while control group showed only 7 percent increase in their torques. It seems that we can use mental practice to increase or keep the muscle strength. It is suggested that physiotherapists combine this new method with the other common methods in their rehabilitation programs.