Background: High resistance training enhances muscular strength, and recent work has suggested an important role for metabolite accumulation in this process. Objective: To investigate the role of fatigue and metabolite accumulation in strength gains by comparing highly fatiguing and non-fatiguing isotonic training protocols. Methods: Twenty three healthy adults (18-29 years of age; eight women) were assigned to either a high fatigue protocol (HF: four sets of 10 repetitions with 30 seconds rest between sets) to maximise metabolic stress or a low fatigue protocol (LF: 40 repetitions with 30 seconds between each repetition) to minimise changes. Subjects lifted on average 73% of their 1 repetition maximum through the full range of knee extension with both legs, three times a week. Quadriceps isometric strength of each leg was measured at a knee joint angle of 1.57 rad (90°), and a Cybex 340 isokinetic dynamometer was used to measure the angle-torque and torque-velocity relations of the non-dominant leg. Results: At the mid-point of the training, the HF group had 50% greater gains in isometric strength, although this was not significant (4.5 weeks: HF, 13.3 (4.4)%; LF, 8.9 (3.6)%). This rate of increase was not sustained by the HF group, and after nine weeks of training all the strength measurements showed similar improvements for both groups (isometric strength: HF, 18.2 (3.9)%; LF, 14.5 (4.0)%). The strength gains were limited to the longer muscle lengths despite training over the full range of movement. Conclusions: Fatigue and metabolite accumulation do not appear to be critical stimuli for strength gain, and resistance training can be effective without the severe discomfort and acute physical effort associated with fatiguing contractions.

Abstract:In this paper we analyse chronic pain narratives on Flickr and Tumblr. We focus on how, by incorporating visual and multimodal elements, chronic pain expressions in social media significantly extend and challenge the logic, function and effects of traditional 'illness narratives'.We examine a sample of images and blogs related to chronic pain and formulate a typology of chronic pain expressions on these sites. Flickr brings a form of narrative immediacy, making the pain experience visible, eliciting empathy, and marking chronicity. Tumblr lends itself to more networked forms of interaction through the circulation of multimodal memes, and support communities are built through humour and social criticism. We argue that new forms of mediation and social media dynamics transform pain narratives. This has implications for our understandings of the forms and formats of pain communication and offers new possibilities for communicating pain within and beyond clinical contexts.

Abstract:Drawing on a research project using arts workshops to explore pain communication, we develop a methodological reflection on the significance of the liveness of arts-based methods. We discuss how liveness informed the design of workshops to provoke novel forms of communication; how it produced uncontrollable and unpredictable workshops, whose unfolding we theorize as ÔimprographyÕ. It also constituted affective and collective experiences of Ôbeing thereÕ as important but difficult-to-record parts of the data, which raises challenges to current understandings of what constitutes data, particularly in the context of team research and in light of directives for archiving and reuse. We explore the implications of liveness for methodological practice.(107 words)

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Pain is difficult to communicate and translate into language, yet most social research on pain experience uses questionnaires and semi-structured interviews that rely on words. In addition to the mind/body dualism prevalent in pain medicine in these studies pain communication is characterised by further value-laden binaries such as real/unreal, visible/invisible, and psychological/physical. Starting from the position that research methods play a role in constituting their object, this article examines the potential of participatory arts workshops for developing different versions of pain communication. Twenty-two participants were involved in workshops using drawing, digital photography, sound and physical theatre to explore pain communication. The use of arts materials made pain tangible. By manipulating pain-related objects, participants could consider alternative relationships to their pain. Pain's sociality was also explored, with relations with clinicians and others emerging as potentially cooperative rather than adversarial. Discussions considered whether pain felt internal or external, and whether it was possible to conceive of a self without pain. We argue that the socio-material context of participatory arts workshops enabled these alternative versions of pain. Such methods are a useful addition to medical sociology's heavy reliance on qualitative interviewing.