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."

Comments

"duh"

[betterprimate]

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

Re:"duh"

[lxs]

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.

Re:the myosin tugs at sharper angles

[Culture20]

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.