Application of health and physical fitness test for middle and old aged people

为了评估皮下脂肪和肌肉的分布模式，通过超声断层扫描对679名男性和950名女性日本志愿者进行了研究。在比较一个城市（东京）的居民与农村（山形的农民）时，农民的手臂肌肉比城市人的肌肉厚，而农民的大腿肌肉则较低。肌肉厚度与其横截面积有关，肌肉面积受日常体育锻炼中激活水平的影响，目前的数据表明，农民与城市居民相比，下肢肌肉收缩的机会可能很小，一般来说，大腿肌肉是行走，上下星和跑步等运动的主要肌肉。有趣的是，与我们的预期相反，农民在下肢开发了一个小肌肉，这可能是由于农业机械化导致的腿部肌肉在农场工作中进行的少量体力活动造成的。

To evaluate the distribution pattern of subcutaneous fat and muscle 679 male and 950 female Japanese volunteers were investigated by means of ultrasonic tomography. In comparing a resisdent in a city (Tokyo) to the country (farmer in Yamagata) the arm muscle of a farmer thicker than that of a cityman, while the thigh muscle was lower in farmer. Muscle thickness is related to its cross-sectional area and the muscle area is affected by the activation level in daily physical exercise, the present data indicates that the farmer may have a little chance for contracting the muscle of lower extremity compared to the resident in the city.Generally speaking, the thigh muscle act as the main muscle for locomotion such as walking, up/down the stars and running. It was interesting to note that contrary to our expectations, the farmer developed a small muscle in lower extremity, which may be caused by a small quantity of physical activities performed by leg muscles in farm work due to mechanization of agriculture.