0000000000625793

AUTHOR

C. Bosco

The effect of pre-stretch on mechanical efficiency of human skeletal muscle

The mechanical efficiency of positive work was studied in six subjects performing three different types of exercises. On the first occasion the subjects ran on a motor-driven treadmill at 3.33 m s-1; the second and the third exercises consisted of performing rhythmical vertical jumps for 1 min both in rebound (RJ) and no-rebound (NRJ) conditions. The mechanical efficiency calculated in NRJ, which reflects only the conversion of biochemical energy into mechanical work, was found to be lower than the corresponding observation in RJ, 17.2 vs. 27.8% (P less than 0.001), respectively. These differences could not be explained by only the storage and recoil of elastic energy occurring in RJ compar…

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Relationship between isokinetic performance and ballistic movement

The present experiments were carried out to assess the relationship between the mechanical behaviour of the leg extensor muscles in 12 male athletes during activities of a ballistic type and torque production, during: (1) torque production during isokinetic contraction: (2) ballistic type activities (vertical jumps from statis position = SJ, with counter-movement equal CMJ and after a fall from different heights equal DJ) and (3) a new anaerobic test (Bosco 1983a). This consisted of performing continuous jump work for a certain period of time (e.g., 60 s). Both ballistic activities and anaerobic power tests demonstrated the highest relationship with peak torques when this was developed resp…

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Muscle enzyme adaptations to added load during training and nontraining hours in rats.

The effects of added load (20% of body mass) on the selected enzyme activities of red and white quadriceps femoris (QF), soleus, and gastrocnemius muscles of rats were studied. The rats were divided into sedentary control (SC), sedentary control with added load (SC+AL), endurance training (ET), and endurance training with added load (ET+AL) groups (n = 10 rats/group). After 6 wk, the SC+AL group had 57% higher (P less than 0.001) beta-glucuronidase (beta-GU) activity and 24% lower (P less than 0.05) citrate synthase activity in white QF than SC. Citrate synthase activity was also decreased in red QF (P less than 0.05) after the added load was used during nontraining hours. The training wit…

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Metabolic response of endurance athletes to training with added load.

Endurance athletes were divided into experimental (n=12) and control (n=12) groups to investigate the effects of extra-load training on energy metabolism during exercise. A vest weighing 9%–10% body weight was worn every day from morning to evening for 4 weeks including every (n=6) or every other (n=6) training session. After 4 weeks the control group had a lower blood lactate concentration during submaximal running, whereas the experimental group had significantly higher blood lactate and oxygen uptake (p<0.01–p<0.05), and a lower 2 mmol lactate threshold (p<0.05) and an increased blood lactate concentration after a short running test to exhaustion (p<0.05). Those experimental subjects (n=…

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The influence of extra load on the mechanical behavior of skeletal muscle

Eleven international jumpers and throwers engaged in year round training were divided into experimental (n = 6) and control (n = 5) groups. The experimental group was tested before and after a 3 weeks simulated hypergravity period, and again 4 weeks after the hypergravity period. The high gravity condition was created by wearing a vest weighing about 13% of the subjects body weight. The vest was worn from morning to evening including the training sessions, and only removed during sleep. The daily training of all subjects consisted of classical weight training and jumping drills. No changes in the ordinary training program were allowed in the experimental group, except for the use of the ves…

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Statistical Modeling of Huffman Tables Coding

An innovative algorithm for automatic generation of Huffman coding tables for semantic classes of digital images is presented. Collecting statistics over a large dataset of corresponding images, we generated Huffman tables for three images classes: landscape, portrait and document. Comparisons between the new tables and the JPEG standard coding tables, using also different quality settings, have shown the effectiveness of the proposed strategy in terms of final bit size (e.g. compression ratio).

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