Current Research Interests

For most of his career, Uwe Proske's research has focussed on the sense organs in mammalian muscle, the muscle spindle and tendon organ. More recently Uwe has concentrated on research in a number of areas of Sport and Exercise Physiology as detailed below;

Hamstring Injury
Recently an aspect of the laboratory's research has been on a common soft-tissue injury, the hamstring strain. Identifying muscle mechanical measurements that can highlight an athlete's susceptibility to this injury is of major interest. Here the main hypothesis is that damage from eccentric exercise is a precursor event that may lead to a strain injury.

Warm-Up
The effect of warm-up exercises on the soreness from eccentric exercise has been studied. Given that most athletes carry out routine warm-up and as yet there is no scientific basis for its effects, this is a research area of great interest. It seems that warm-up relates to a property of all striated muscle, its thixotropy,,that stiffens muscle after a prolonged period of inactivity.

Exercise, Proprioception and Muscle Pain
Studies carried out in Uwe's laboratory have shown that after all forms of intense exercise, including both eccentric and concentric exercise, subjects have a disturbed limb position sense. Where is my arm when I cannot see it? The disturbance is believed to arise in the brain, perhaps as a result of chemicals released in association with the exercise.

Rehabilitation exercise after injury
In view of the soreness and pain produced by some forms of exercise, there has been a search for exercise that minimises movement and produces no soreness, suitable for the rehabilitating athlete. Isometric exercise is a candidate, but care must be taken to restrict contractions to short muscle lengths, where exercise-induced damage is unlikely.