From Mental Power to Muscle Power—Gaining Strength by Using the Mind
Ranganathan, Vinoth K., Vlodek Siemionow, Jing Z. Liu, Vinod Sahgal, and Guang H. Yue. 2004. “From Mental Power to Muscle Power—Gaining Strength by Using the Mind.” Neuropsychologia 42 (7): 944–956. doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2003.11.018
Abstract
The purposes of this project were to determine mental training-induced strength gains (without performing physical exercises) in the little finger abductor as well as in the elbow flexor muscles, which are frequently used during daily living, and to quantify cortical signals that mediate maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) of the two muscle groups. Thirty young, healthy volunteers participated in the study. The first group (N=8) was trained to perform “mental contractions” of little finger abduction (ABD); the second group (N=8) performed mental contractions of elbow (ELB) flexion; and the third group (N=8) was not trained but participated in all measurements and served as a control group. Finally, six volunteers performed training of physical maximal finger abductions. Training lasted for 12 weeks (15min per day, 5 days per week). At the end of training, we found that the ABD group had increased their finger abduction strength by 35
BibTeX
@article{RANGANATHAN2004944,
title = {From Mental Power to Muscle Power---Gaining Strength by Using the Mind},
author = {Ranganathan, Vinoth K. and Siemionow, Vlodek and Liu, Jing Z. and Sahgal, Vinod and Yue, Guang H.},
year = 2004,
journal = {Neuropsychologia},
volume = {42},
number = {7},
pages = {944--956},
issn = {0028-3932},
doi = {10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2003.11.018},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393203003257},
abstract = {The purposes of this project were to determine mental training-induced strength gains (without performing physical exercises) in the little finger abductor as well as in the elbow flexor muscles, which are frequently used during daily living, and to quantify cortical signals that mediate maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) of the two muscle groups. Thirty young, healthy volunteers participated in the study. The first group (N=8) was trained to perform ``mental contractions'' of little finger abduction (ABD); the second group (N=8) performed mental contractions of elbow (ELB) flexion; and the third group (N=8) was not trained but participated in all measurements and served as a control group. Finally, six volunteers performed training of physical maximal finger abductions. Training lasted for 12 weeks (15min per day, 5 days per week). At the end of training, we found that the ABD group had increased their finger abduction strength by 35},
keywords = {Imagery,Maximal voluntary contraction (MVC),Mental training,Muscle strength,MVC-related cortical potential (MRCP)}
}