Increased central facilitation of antagonist reciprocal inhibition at the onset of dorsiflexion foll
June 29th, 2008 | by admin |Increased central facilitation of antagonist reciprocal inhibition at the onset of dorsiflexion following explosive strength training.
At the onset of dorsiflexion disynaptic reciprocal inhibition (DRI) of soleus motoneurons is increased in order to prevent activation of the antagonistic plantar flexors. This is caused by descending facilitation of transmission in the DRI pathway. Since the risk of eliciting stretch reflexes in the ankle plantar flexors at the onset of dorsiflexion is larger the quicker the movement, it was hypothesized that DRI may be increased when subjects are trained to perform dorsiflexion movements as quickly as possible. For this purpose, 14 healthy human subjects participated in explosive strength training of the ankle dorsiflexor muscles 3 times a week for 4 weeks. Test sessions were conducted before, shortly after and 2 weeks after the training period. The rate of torque development measured at 30, 50, 100 and 200 ms after onset of voluntary explosive isometric dorsiflexion increased by 24-33% (p < 0.05). DRI was measured as the depression of the soleus H-reflex following conditioning stimulation of the peroneal nerve (1.1 x motor threshold) at an interval of 2-3 ms. At the onset of dorsiflexion the amount of DRI measured relative to DRI at rest increased significantly from 6% before the training to 22% after the training (p < 0.05). We speculate that DRI at the onset of movement may be increased in healthy subjects following explosive strength training in order to ensure efficient suppression of the antagonist muscles as the dorsiflexion movement becomes faster. Key words: motor control, agonist-antagonist coordination, rate of torque development.
Geertsen SS, Lundbye-Jensen J, Nielsen JB.
Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Panum 22.3, Copenhagen, 2200, Denmark; Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, University of Copenhagen, Panum 22.3, Copenhagen, 2200, Denmark.