Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Training cessation usually occurs when athletes encounter certain circumstances, such as disease, injury or travel. This might affect the neural regulation of skeletal muscle.
OBJECTIVE: To fully understand the effect of training cessation on muscle strength neural regulation ability and the mechanism behind it.
METHODS: An online search of Medline database was performed for relevant reviews and research papers on training cessation and neural regulation of muscle strength published between 1983 and 2006. Then a tracing search was performed according to the references of the collected articles.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: A total of 48 articles on training cessation and neural regulation of muscle strength were collected. The training cessation with certain duration can cause the decrease of maximal voluntary contraction, but this might be affected by spinal cord, nerve centre above the spinal cord and skeletal muscle itself. In the mean time, the maximal voluntary contraction and corresponding neural adaptation may retain to some extent during the training cessation, depending on the exercise training mode, the muscle contraction pattern, the testing position and circumstance during training cessation.