Regional Hypertrophy with Resistance Training—Does Muscle Length Matter?
A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51224/SRXIV.464Keywords:
muscle hypertrophy, muscle length, range of motion, resistance trainingAbstract
The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to examine how mean muscle length during resistance training (RT) influences regional muscle hypertrophy. We included studies that manipulated muscle length through range of motion (ROM) or exercise selection and evaluated regional muscle hypertrophy (i.e., changes at proximal, mid-belly, and/or distal sites). After systematically searching through three databases with additional secondary searches 12 studies were included in a meta-analysis. The meta-analysis was performed within the Bayesian meta-analytic framework. Standardized mean changes indicated trivial hypertrophic effects estimated with relatively high precision between proximal (25% muscle length; SMD: 0.04 [95%QI: -0.07, 0.15]; Exponentiated lnRR: 0.48% [95%QI: -1.99%, 3.13%]), mid-belly (50% muscle length; SMD: 0.07 [95%QI: -0.02, 0.15]; Exponentiated lnRR: 1.14% [95%QI: -0.84%, 3.13%]), and distal (75% muscle length; SMD: 0.09 [95%QI: -0.01, 0.19]; Exponentiated lnRR: 1.8% [95%QI: -0.52%, 4.26%]) sites. While the effects of training at longer muscle lengths showed an increasing trend from proximal to distal sites, the percentage of posterior distributions falling within ROPE was high from proximal to distal sites suggesting that effects are practically equivalent when contrasting “shorter” and “longer” mean muscle lengths at the typical differences employed in the current body of literature (i.e., an average difference of 21.8% mean muscle length). In summary, our results indicate that training at longer mean muscle length does not seem to produce greater regional muscle hypertrophy compared to shorter mean muscle lengths. However, due to small contrast in muscle lengths employed between conditions/groups, our findings should be considered limited to the contrasts typically employed in the literature.
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