• Ché Fornusek, Glen Macartney Davis, and Michael Friedrich Russold.
• Clinical Exercise and Rehabilitation Unit, Exercise Health and Performance Research Group, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Che.Fornusek@Sydney.edu.au
• Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2013 May 1;94(5):990-3.

ObjectiveTo investigate the long-term effects of functional electrical stimulation (FES)-evoked cycle training cadence on leg muscle hypertrophy and electrically evoked strength.DesignOpen intervention study.SettingLaboratory setting.ParticipantsUntrained individuals with chronic spinal cord injury (N=8).InterventionsSix weeks (3d/wk) of training on an isokinetic FES cycle ergometer. For each subject, 1 leg was randomly allocated to cycling at 10 revolutions per minute (rpm) (LOW) for 30min/d, and the other cycling at 50rpm (HIGH) for 30min/d.Main Outcome MeasuresPre- and posttraining measurements of lower limb circumference were performed at the distal and middle position of each thigh. Electrically evoked quadriceps muscle torque during an isometric contraction was also assessed.ResultsSix weeks of FES cycle training significantly increased thigh girth in both LOW and HIGH groups. At midthigh, girth increases induced by LOW (6.6%±1.2%) were significantly greater than those by HIGH (3.6%±0.8%). LOW also produced greater gains in electrically evoked isometric torque than HIGH after training.ConclusionsThese results suggest that lower pedaling cadences evoke greater muscle hypertrophy and electrically stimulated muscle strength compared with higher cadences.Copyright © 2013 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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