Muscular adaptations and insulin-like growth factor-1 responses to resistance training are stretch-mediated

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of IGF-1 LR3 in the context of insulin resistance, prediabetes & type 2 diabetes, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Modulation of muscle characteristics was attempted through altering muscle stretch during resistance training.

The researchers hypothesized that stretch would enhance muscle responses.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as teenagers, young adults and adults, both men and women.

Participants trained for 8 weeks, loading the quadriceps in a shortened (SL, 0-50° knee flexion; n=10) or lengthened (LL, 40-90°; n=11) position, followed by 4 weeks of detraining.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and pilot study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got IGF-1 LR3 and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger IGF-1 LR3 study would be practical.

The methods mention a period of 8 weeks.

Controls (CON; n=10) were untrained.

Quadriceps strength, vastus lateralis architecture, anatomical cross-sectional area (aCSA), and serum insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) were measured at weeks 0, 8, 10, and 12.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Adaptation, Physiological, Electromyography, Insulin-Like Growth Factor I, Muscle Contraction, Muscle Spindles, Muscle Strength and Muscle, Skeletal.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and pilot study of IGF-1 LR3 in people with insulin resistance, prediabetes & type 2 diabetes over 8 weeks.

Results are reported in around 4 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2014 (Muscle & nerve), a journal based in United States.

More context: the IGF-1 LR3 compound page, Insulin resistance, prediabetes & type 2 diabetes research.