Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34583567›Full record

ArticleJournal of the Royal Society, Interface2021

The energy of muscle contraction. IV. Greater mass of larger muscles decreases contraction efficiency.

Stephanie A Ross, James M Wakeling

Open access · greenAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
9citing papers in PubMed
0.8field-weighted citation impact, top 32% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

9 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Effects of muscle mass on muscle force predictions in human movement.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Review
  8. Article
  9. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Stephanie A RossDepartment of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6.ORCID 0000-0003-3512-9579
James M WakelingDepartment of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6.
Simon Fraser University · CA

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

While skeletal muscle mass has been shown to decrease mass-specific mechanical work per cycle, it is not yet known how muscle mass alters contraction efficiency. In this study, we examined the effect of muscle mass on mass-specific metabolic cost and efficiency during cyclic contractions in simulated muscles of different sizes. We additionally explored how tendon and its stiffness alters the effects of muscle mass on mass-specific work, mass-specific metabolic cost and efficiency across different muscle sizes. To examine contraction efficiency, we estimated the metabolic cost of the cycles using established cost models. We found that for motor contractions in which the muscle was primarily active during shortening, greater muscle mass resulted in lower contraction efficiency, primarily due to lower mass-specific mechanical work per cycle. The addition of a tendon in series with the mass-enhanced muscle model improved the mass-specific work and efficiency per cycle with greater mass for motor contractions, particularly with a shorter excitation duty cycle, despite higher predicted metabolic cost. The results of this study indicate that muscle mass is an important determinant of whole muscle contraction efficiency.

Indexed as

Muscle ContractionMuscle, SkeletalBiomechanical PhenomenaElasticityIsometric ContractionTendonscyclic contractionsefficiencymetabolic costmuscle massseries elasticitytendon stiffness

Identifiers

PMID34583567
PMCPMC8479364
OpenAlexW3202733549

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.