TABLE 2.

Knee joint moments, co-activation (i.e., antagonistic moment normalized to the resultant knee joint moment), tendon resting length, and normalized stiffness of the non-athletes and athletes in the three age groups (EA, early adolescence; LA, late adolescence; YA, young adulthood; means ± standard deviation).

	Non-athletes			Athletes
	EA (n = 14)	LA (n = 13)	YA (n = 13)	EA (n = 15)	LA (n = 14)	YA (n = 12)
MVC [Nm]∗#	145.2 ± 34.6b,c	267.0 ± 72.3a	288.2 ± 61.0a	202.0 ± 65.7b,c	327.3 ± 69.4a	367.0 ± 64.7a
Normalized MVC [Nm/kg]∗#	3.20 ± 0.42b,c	3.83 ± 0.56a	3.60 ± 0.53a	3.52 ± 0.75b,c	4.47 ± 0.61a	4.61 ± 0.55a
Antagonistic co-activation [%]	8.4 ± 4.3	11.1 ± 6.3	8.9 ± 6.1	8.5 ± 6.3	8.1 ± 5.1	8.5 ± 4.5
Tendon resting length [mm]	49.2 ± 8.5	52.0 ± 4.4	51.0 ± 8.4	50.6 ± 6.9	53.0 ± 7.6	48.1 ± 5.9
Tendon normalized stiffness [kN/strain]∗#	41.5 ± 11.6b,c	57.2 ± 11.1a	63.3 ± 15.7a	51.0 ± 15.1b,c	65.9 ± 14.7a	70.5 ± 14.5a

^#Statistically significant effect of activity (p < 0.05). ^∗Statistically significant effect of age (p < 0.05). ^aStatistically significant difference to EA (p < 0.05). ^bStatistically significant difference to LA (p < 0.05). ^cStatistically significant difference to YA (p < 0.05).