Tension changes in the cat soleus muscle following slow stretch or shortening of the contracting muscle

Abstract

1. The permanent extra tension after a stretch and the deficit of tension after a shortening in the soleus muscle of the anaesthetised cat were measured using distributed nerve stimulation across five channels. At low rates of stimulation the optimum length for a contraction was several millimetres longer than that when higher rates of stimulation were used, so that movements applied over the same length range could be on the descending limb of the full activation curve but on the ascending limb of the submaximal activation curve. 2. The extra tension after stretch and the depression after shortening were present only near the peak and on the descending limb of the length-tension curve. Effe..