adjustment to different heights. A bar height producing a
knee joint angle of 145/C14 (measured by a manual goniometer)
was selected, and the participant was instructed to keep his
torso upright while completing the IMTP efforts. Two cali-
brated 10-kN-capacity force platforms (model 9286B, Kistler
Instruments, Ltd., London, UK), one underneath each foot,
were placed on top of the isometric rig’sb a s ep l a t e ,a n dv e r t i -
cal force signals from the eight individual load cells across the
two force platforms were outputted (External Control Unit
model 5233 A, Kistler Instruments, Ltd.) and sampled at 2,000
Hz using an external analog-to-digital converter (Micro 1401;
CED, Cambridge, UK) and recorded with Spike 2 computer
software (CED, Cambridge, UK).
Following a warm-up consisting of a series of incremental
warm-up contractions of/C24 5 s duration ranging from 50% to
90% of maximum perceived effort, two maximum IMTP
efforts of 3– 5 s duration were performed under the instruc-
tion to“pull as hard as possible.” Six minutes separated the
maximum efforts, based on a self-selected recovery period.
Wrist wraps were worn to remove the inﬂuence of grip
strength from the assessment. Real-time overall feedback
from the force platforms (the sum of the force signals from
Figure 1.Example axial MRI images from
the World’s Strongest Man and deadlift
champion (WSM; A–C) and an untrained
control participant ( D–F) from the hip
(A and D), thigh (B and E), and lower leg (C
and F). Image location relative to femur
and shank length was matched between
the WSM and the untrained control as fol-
lows: hip image is at approximately midfe-
moral head, thigh image is at/C24 52% of
femur length (0% is distal end of femur,
100% is greater trochanter), and lower leg
image is at/C24 70% of shank length (0% is
lateral malleolus, 100% is proximal end of
tibia). The untrained control participant
displayed was from the work by Miller et al.
(13) and had a total measured muscle vol-
ume of all measured muscles that was 5.1%
smaller than the mean of the untrained
group within that study.
WORLD STRONGMAN AND DEADLIFT CHAMPION
792 J Appl Physiol/C15 doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00342.2024 /C15 www.jappl.org
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