Slashdot Mirror


50-Year-Old Assumptions About Muscle Strength Tossed Aside

vinces99 writes "The basics of how a muscle generates power remain the same: Filaments of myosin tugging on filaments of actin shorten, or contract, the muscle – but the power doesn't just come from what's happening straight up and down the length of the muscle, as has been assumed for 50 years. Instead, new research shows that as muscles bulge, the filaments are drawn apart from each other, the myosin tugs at sharper angles over greater distances, and it's that action that deserves credit for half the change in muscle force scientists have been measuring."

4 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. "duh" by betterprimate · · Score: 3, Funny

    Science articulates what millennia of body builders could only say "duh" to.

    1. Re:"duh" by lxs · · Score: 5, Funny

      Come on! Even in the '70s in every clip you could hear Arnold shouting "Ze Myocin tugz at Shahpahh angles!" Of course he was stoned out of his gourd when he said that.

  2. Re:body builders and marathon runners by Thanshin · · Score: 1, Funny

    In standard (boring) writing, you have a topic sentence, followed by supporting sentences. Then you start a new paragraph for a new topic.

    Also, the aforementioned sentences are constructed with words, which start with a letter, followed, or not, by some more. Then you end that word with a space so you can start with the next word.

    The exception is that after the last word in the sentence, instead of a space, there's a period.

  3. Re:the myosin tugs at sharper angles by Culture20 · · Score: 3, Funny

    for me, there will only be one true troll ever, and he is HOSTS

    Then you'll be glad to hear they're back on track to making Twinkies again.