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The functional significance of hamstrings composition: is it really a ‘fast’ muscle group?

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posted on 2016-10-06, 11:01 authored by Pavlos Evangelidis, Garry J. Massey, Richard FergusonRichard Ferguson, Patrick WheelerPatrick Wheeler, Matthew PainMatthew Pain, Jonathan FollandJonathan Folland
Hamstrings muscle fibre composition may be predominantly fast-twitch and could explain the high incidence of hamstrings strain injuries. However, hamstrings muscle composition in vivo, and its influence on knee flexor muscle function, remains unknown. We investigated biceps femoris long head (BFlh) myosin-heavy chain (MHC) composition from biopsy samples, and the association of hamstrings composition and hamstrings muscle volume (using MRI) with knee flexor maximal and explosive strength. Thirty-one young men performed maximal (concentric, eccentric, isometric) and explosive (isometric) contractions. BFlh exhibited a balanced MHC distribution (mean±SD (min-max); 47.1±9.1% (32.6-71.0%) MHC-I, 35.5±8.5% (21.5-60.0%) MHC-IIA, 17.4±9.1% (0.0-30.9%) MHC-IIX). Muscle volume was correlated with knee flexor maximal strength at all velocities and contraction modes (r= 0.62–0.76, P< 0.01), but only associated with late phase explosive strength (time to 90 Nm; r= -0.53, P< 0.05). In contrast, BFlh muscle composition was not related to any maximal or explosive strength measure. BFlh MHC composition was not found to be ‘fast’, and therefore composition does not appear to explain the high incidence of hamstrings strain injury. Hamstrings muscle volume explained 38-58% of the inter-individual differences in knee flexor maximum strength at a range of velocities and contraction modes, while BFlh muscle composition was not associated with maximal or explosive strength.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports

Volume

27

Issue

11

Pages

1181-1189

Citation

EVANGELIDIS, P. ... et al, 2016. The functional significance of hamstrings composition: is it really a ‘fast’ muscle group? Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 27(11), pp. 1181–1189.

Publisher

© John Wiley & Sons

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-09-14

Publication date

2016-10-13

Copyright date

2017

Notes

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: EVANGELIDIS, P. ... et al, 2016. The functional significance of hamstrings composition: is it really a ‘fast’ muscle group? Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 27(11), pp. 1181–1189. which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/sms.12786. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving

ISSN

0905-7188

eISSN

1600-0838

Language

  • en