Blood Flow through Human Skeletal Muscle during and after Contraction

Abstract

Muscle blood flow measurements were made with a heated thermocouple technique on the patients with ischemic muscles and on control subjects during and after contraction. Simultaneous recording of the muscle blood flow and electromyogram revealed that there is a direct correlation between the increase in the blood flow and the strength of muscular contraction. During strong sustained contraction, the initially increased blood flow fell toward the resting level followed by a reactive hyperemia, which was particularly marked in ischemic muscles. The findings suggested that the blood flow changes during contraction were related to mechanical processes, and that the post-contraction hyperemia was caused by the metabolic products in the ischemic muscles.