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Effects on tenderness caused by contraction of excised chicken muscles, induced by immediate post-mortem treatments consisting of electrical stimulation, beating, freeze-thawing, end heating, and followed by cooking in the prerigor state were measured. One member of each pair of muscles was held in restraint while exposed to the same conditions. In terms of percentage of original rest length, electrical stimulation reduced muscle length to 59%, and when followed by cooking to 44%; freeze-thawing reduced the length to 42%, and when followed by cooking to 40%; beating to 95%, and when followed by cooking to 52%; cooking alone to 48-53%.With the exception of the beatingheating combination, all contraction-inducing treatments resulted in a reduction of the shear values (force per cross-sectional area) of cooked muscle to about one-half those of uncontracted controls.These results with chicken muscles on intense contraction followed by cooking in the prerigor state agree with recent similar observations on red meat muscles.

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