Physiological adaptations to explosive strength training

Background

• Thigh muscle weakness is a risk factor for both osteoarthritis (OA) onset and progression.
• Strength training can be used to bring about adaptations of the nervous system, muscle size, muscle structure, and connective tissue (size and stiffness) that can modify this OA risk factor.
• The nature of these adaptations can have implications for function, joint stability, and resistance to injury.
• Therefore, strength training could influence prevention and management of OA.
• Our laboratory recently demonstrated that Explosive Strength Training (e.g. repeated ~1 second efforts requiring rapid force production) can increase muscle and tendon tissue stiffness after only 4 weeks (quicker than has previously been reported with other types of strength training).
• Further investigation of the physiological adaptations to Explosive Strength Training over a longer intervention period (12 weeks) is clearly warranted.

What the research hopes to achieve

The research will determine if explosive strength training and conventional strength training (e.g. training involving repeated 4 second efforts and steady force production) will produce differing: 

• Force production and nervous system adaptations.
• Knee tendon size, thigh muscle size, and thigh muscle structural adaptations.
• Knee tendon and thigh muscle connection tissue stiffness (e.g. the relationship between muscle force produced and tissue elongation) adaptations.