Maximum Force Capacity of Back Extensor Muscles in Healthy Women and Men: Not Different, if Anthropometrically Normalized
Christoph Anders, Beatrice Steiniger, Florian Saenger, Martin Marks, Lena Mader, Evgenij Dukvin, Anna Schneider · 2026
Read Maximum Force Capacity of Back Extensor Muscles in Healthy Women and Men: Not Different, if Anthropometrically Normalized by Christoph Anders, Beatrice Steiniger, Florian Saenger, Martin Marks, Lena Mader, Evgenij Dukvin, Anna Schneider (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13300895.txt.
Description
Christoph Anders and co-authors compare back extensor strength between healthy women and men in a 2026 study of 239 adults. Each volunteer performed a maximal isometric trunk extension test standing upright. The team also converted upper body weight into the torque it imposes, so strength could be judged against the load each person's own body presents.
In absolute terms men were much stronger, producing about 241 newton meters against 162 in women, and their upper body torque was likewise higher. Once strength was divided by that body imposed load, the sex gap stopped meeting the authors' strict relevance criteria, which required a clear statistical, effect size, and importance threshold all at once. Both sexes held roughly a one hundred percent reserve above their own upper body weight. The authors conclude that raw reference values mislead, and fair strength standards must be scaled to body build.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Christoph Anders, Beatrice Steiniger, Florian Saenger, Martin Marks, Lena Mader, Evgenij Dukvin, Anna Schneider |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 18 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |