LU exercise science professorās research published
51ĀŅĀ× Assistant Professor of Exercise Science Caleb Voskuil, Ph.D., is part of a team that will have research published this fall by the American Physiological Society in the Journal of Neurophysiology.
Voskuil collaborated with researchers from Texas Christian University, Kansas State University and the University of Central Florida to measured how individual nerve-muscle āmotor unitsā behave during near-maximal biceps curls in 35 healthy adults.
Using a high-density wearable EMG sensor and AI-based signal analysis, the group tracked 1,361 motor units and found that even a small increase in load made the motor-unit system fire more strongly, without changing the overall recruitment pattern.
They also observed clear sex differences at these high intensities: men showed higher firing rates and larger motor-unit signals than women, consistent with a greater contribution from larger, fast-twitch fibers.
āThe findings show that motor-unit behavior adapts to load during real-world movements and point to meaningful sex-specific considerations for strength training and rehabilitation,ā said Voskuil, who is also director of Lakelandās exercise science research.
āBy looking 'under the hood' at individual motor units, we show that tiny changes in load meaningfully shift how the nervous system drives muscle, and that men and women donāt always get there the same way. That matters for how we design training and rehab at high intensities.ā
