Adaptive responses of hypertrophying skeletal muscle to endurance training

We determined the effects of 6 wk of endurance running on citrate synthase (CS) activity and myosin heavy chain (MHC) expression in bilateral surgical-overloaded rodent fast-twitch plantaris and slow-twitch soleus muscles. The overload induced significant hypertrophy in both muscle types, and this response was enhanced by endurance training. The overload-induced compensatory hypertrophy was accompanied by a proportional increase in muscle CS content. Although endurance training produced significant increases in CS concentration in either muscle type of the normal-trained groups (P < 0.05), it was not effective in causing similar changes in the overloaded trained muscles. Also, overload of either the sedentary or trained groups produced an increase in slower MHC isoforms (i.e., type I in the soleus and types I and IIa in the plantaris) and a concomitant decrease in the faster MHC isoforms (type IIa in the soleus and IIb in the plantaris; P < 0.05), whereas endurance training alone produced the opposite effect, especially in the plantaris. Collectively, these data suggest that 1) increments in muscle oxidative enzyme content due to endurance training are compromised when a hypertrophying process is occurring concomitantly; and 2) the relative loading state imposed on the muscle during repetitive locomotor activity is critical in regulating the pattern of MHC plasticity.