When Antagonist Muscles at the Ankle Interfere with Maximal Voluntary Contraction under Isometric and Anisometric Conditions

Purpose: While resultant maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) is commonly used to assess muscular performance, the simultaneous activation of antagonist muscles could dramatically underestimate the strength of the agonist muscles. While quantification of antagonist torque has been performed in plantar- (PF) and dorsi-flexion (DF) joint in isometric conditions, it has yet to be determined in anisometric (concentric and eccentric) conditions. Methods: The experiment was performed in 9 participants through 2 sessions (reliability). The MVCs in DF and PF were measured in isometric, concentric and eccentric conditions (10°.s-1). Electromyographic (EMG) activities from the soleus, gastrocnemius medialis and lateralis, and tibialis anterior muscles were simultaneously recorded. The EMG biofeedback method was used to quantify antagonist torque, where participants were asked to maintain a level of EMG activity, corresponding to antagonist EMG activity and related to the muscle contraction type, according to a visual EMG bio-feedback displayed on a screen. Results: Resultant torque significantly underestimated agonist torque in DF MVC (30-65%) and to a lesser extent in PF MVC (3%). Triceps surae antagonist torque was significantly modified with muscle contraction type, showing higher antagonist torque in isometric (29 Nm) than eccentric (23 Nm, p < 0.001) and concentric (14 Nm, p < 0.001) conditions and resulting in modification of the DF MVC torque-velocity shape. The difference between DF eccentric and concentric MVC was attenuated when considered agonist torque (12%) rather than resultant torque (45%). Conclusion: Estimation of the antagonist torque in isometric or anisometric condition brings new insights to assessment of muscular performance and could result in costly misinterpretation in strength training and/or rehabilitation programs.

Some New Results for Jaggi-W-Contraction-Type Mappings on b-Metric-like Spaces

In this article, we generalize, improve, unify and enrich some results for Jaggi-W-contraction-type mappings in the framework of b-metric-like spaces. Our results supplement numerous methods in the existing literature, and we created new approach to prove that a Picard sequence is Cauchy in a b-metric-like space. Among other things, we prove Wardowski’s theorem, but now by using only the property (W1). Our proofs in this article are much shorter than ones in recently published papers.

Unified multivalued interpolative Reich–Rus–Ćirić-type contractions

This article examines new multivalued interpolative Reich–Rus–Ćirić-type contraction conditions and fixed point results for multivalued maps that fulfill these conditions. Earlier defined interpolative contraction type conditions cannot be particularized to any contraction type condition. This slackness of the interpolative contraction type condition is addressed through new multivalued interpolative Reich–Rus–Ćirić-type contraction conditions.

A New Approach of Some Contractive Mappings on Metric Spaces

In this paper, we introduce a new contraction-type mapping and provide a fixed-point theorem which generalizes and improves some existing results in the literature. Thus, we prove that the Boyd and Wong theorem (1969) and, more recently, the fixed-point results due to Wardowski (2012), Turinici (2012), Piri and Kumam (2016), Secelean (2016), Proinov (2020), and others are consequences of our main result. An application in integral equations and some illustrative examples are indicated.

FIXED POINT THEOREMS IN A GENERALIZED CONE b-METRIC SPACE

In this paper, we introduce a generalization of a cone \it{b}-metric space and to demonstrate the usefulness we prove some fixed point theorems of contraction type mappings in the generalized cone \it{b}-metric space.