title: The Huxley-Simmons manoeuvre: is still lacking the experimental evidence that the quick release is a pure elastic phenomenon.
abstract: The analysis of the quick release is usually made by fitting a straight line to the first few experimental points of the tension-length curve. The line is then extrapolated to zero force. The fact that the tension-length curve can be represented by a straight line does not grant, however, that the quick release is a pure elastic process. As a matter of fact the experimental precision is not such to exclude a small nonlinearity from the curve and thus to mistake a visco-elastic process for an elastic one. At least two are the consequences of such a mistake: (1) stiffness is overestimated; (2) energy balance is incorrect.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Biochimica e Biologia Molecolare, Università di Ferrara, Via Borsari 46, 44100 Ferrara, Italy. enrico.grazi@unife.it
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Grazi
mesh_terms: D004548:Elasticity; D007537:Isometric Contraction; D018485:Muscle Fibers, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology*; D014783:Viscosity