Neural control of muscle lengthening: Task- and muscle-specificity

Hirofumi Sekiguchi, Kimitaka Nakazawa, Tibor Hortobágyi
2013 The Journal of Physical Fitness and Sports Medicine  
We accomplish activities of daily living through a combination of or isolated isometric, shortening (concentric), lengthening (eccentric) contractions regarded as fundamental patterns of muscle activation. It has been widely recognized that a unique neural strategy may control lengthening contractions but it is still unclear if this neural strategy is uniform across muscles. Here we review evidence for task-specific differences in neural control of muscle lengthening and shortening as indexed
more » ... surface electromyographic activity, corticospinal excitability, anatomical properties, and motor unit behavior. The emerging hypothesis is that the neural control of task-specificity associated with muscle lengthening and shortening may not be uniform across all healthy human muscles.
doi:10.7600/jpfsm.2.191 fatcat:cgvkfso3wjdr5omua5ky42wk5y