C. Nicol et Pv. Komi, SIGNIFICANCE OF PASSIVELY INDUCED STRETCH REFLEXES ON ACHILLES-TENDONFORCE ENHANCEMENT, Muscle & nerve, 21(11), 1998, pp. 1546-1548
An in vivo buckle transducer technique was applied to study the reflex
contribution to ATF enhancement during passive dorsiflexion stretches
. Single stretches led to a linear ATF increase in the absence of an E
MG reflex response, whereas clear ATF enhancement over the passive com
ponent occurred 13-15 ms after the onset of EMG responses. To quantify
the reflexly induced increase in ATF, the stretched position was main
tained. The mean reflex effect was two to four times greater than the
passive stretch effect. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.