Strength and fatigue

Abstract

IT is generally thought that the very large forces which isolated muscles can develop when excited electrically would produce movements so violent as to endanger tendons and bones if they were available in voluntary contractions in normal life. Our strength is kept within bounds by the inability of the higher centres to activate the muscles to the full. In a prolonged effort, this limited capacity to drive anterior horn cells by an effort of will is the part of the neuromuscular apparatus most subject to fatigue, so that the observed falling off in performance is due to an even less complete nervous activation of the muscle fibres rather than to failure of the contractile mechanism itself 1,2. © 1950 Nature Publishing Group.