The aim of this study was to measure if passive stretching would influence delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), dynamic muscle strength, plasma creatine kinase concentration (CK) and the ratio of phosphocreatine to inorganic phosphate (PCr/P(i)) following eccentric exercise. Seven healthy untrained women, 28-46 years old, performed eccentric exercise with the right m. quadriceps in an isokinet...

External mechanical stretch plays an important role in regulating cellular behaviors through intracellular mechanosensitive and mechanotransductive machineries such as the F-actin cytoskeleton (CSK) structures and focal adhesions (FAs) anchoring the F-actin CSK to the extracellular environment. Studying the mechanoresponsive behaviors of the F-actin CSK and FAs in response to cell stretch has g...

This study aimed to compare the effect of local vibration (LV) and whole body vibration (WBV) on lower body flexibility and to assess whether vibration treatments were more effective than traditionally used static and dynamic stretching methods. Twenty-four well-trained male combat athletes (age: 22.7 ± 3.3 years) performed four exercise protocols – LV (30 Hz, 4 mm), WBV (30 Hz, 4 mm), static s...

Understanding the time-dependent mechanical behavior of tough and viscoelastic hydrogels under complex external loading is crucial. In this study, we utilized synthesized through copolymerization methacrylic acid methacrylamide as a model system to investigate their multiaxial stretching across wide range strain rates. Three modes examined were uniaxial, pure shear, equal biaxial stretching. Ou...

DNA stretching experiments are usually interpreted using the worm-like chain model; the persistence length A appearing in the model is then interpreted as the elastic stiffness of the double helix. In fact the persistence length obtained by this method is a combination of bend stiffness and intrinsic bend effects reflecting sequence information, just as at zero stretching force. This observatio...

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is widely used in packaging and fiber industries. However, despite of its strain-induced crystallization (SIC) behavior, stretching procedures sometimes lead to dimensional instabilities upon time or at intermediate temperatures (hot filling for example). One the solutions involves heating sample during a specific given temperature, generally after stretching, p...