Non-dental study of the ‘functional matrix’ hypothesis

An exploratory study was undertaken to obtain data on arm measurements of competitive female tennis players (n = 30) at three age levels — prepubertal (10-12years), post-pubertal (16-18years) and mature (45-70years). They were matched with persons who did not play with racquets but who had generally played sport (non-racquet sports persons, n = 30). Comparisons were to be made between the arms they preferred for playing tennis with their other (non-preferred) arms, and with the arms of non-racquet sports persons. The results suggest that competitive female tennis players differ from non-racquet sports persons, in that these tennis players have ignificantly shorter preferred forearm bone length and greater preferred forearm girth measurements than the non-racquet persons, because their preferred forearrn length was longer. These findings were most prominent in the post-pubertal group, which indicates a study to explore the Epigenetic hypothesis using arms is justified. The fact that it was less prominent in the older age group could be explained by the observation that the older players did not stroke the ball as aggressively. The results of this study also indicated that there were no significant differences between tennis players and non-tennis players in ponderal indices, preferred grip strength or preferred elbow and wrist widths. Therefore the results suggest that the phenomenon should be studied in, rather than extrapolated to, the maxillo-facial region.