Dosage-Adjusted Resistance Training in Mice with a Reduced Risk of Muscle Damage

Progressive resistance training (PRT), which involves performing muscle contractions against progressively greater external loads, can increase muscle mass and strength in healthy individuals and in patient populations. There is a need for precision rehabilitation tools to test the safety and effectiveness of PRT to maintain and/or restore muscle mass and strength in preclinical studies on small and large animal models. The PRT methodology and device described in this article can be used to perform dosage-adjusted resistance training (DART). The DART device can be used as a standalone dynamometer to objectively assess the concentric contractile torque generated by the ankle dorsiflexors in mice or can be added to a pre-existing isokinetic dynamometry system. The DART device can be fabricated with a standard 3D printer based on the instructions and open-source 3D print files provided in this work. The article also describes the workflow for a study to compare contraction-induced muscle damage caused by a single bout of DART to muscle damage caused by a comparable bout of isometric contractions (ISOM) in a mouse model of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2B/R2 (BLAJ mice). The data from eight BLAJ mice (four animals for each condition) suggest that less than 10% of the tibialis anterior (TA) muscle was damaged from a single bout of DART or ISOM, with DART being less damaging than ISOM.