Word: hellebrandt
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...Hold it-use every ounce of your strength," said Dr. Frances Hellebrandt. Marilyn squirmed in her seat, her arm straining against the weight. As floodlights flicked on automatically and a preset camera recorded her travail, Marilyn bent her head to the right, tucked her chin into the hollow of her shoulder. (Though Marilyn did not know it, there is sound scientific basis for easing tension this way. She hit upon it naturally. Some subjects never learn it.) But no matter how hard she strained her right forearm's flexor muscle, the chain began to reel out link by link...
...muscle-moll project, undertaken in response to a plea from the National Society for Crippled Children and Adults, is to learn more about how building up one set of muscles reacts on others in different parts of the body, and to apply this knowledge in rehabilitation. Chicago-born Dr. Hellebrandt, 58, came out of retirement (after a distinguished career in physical medicine and rehabilitation) to head the project, enlisted 24 coeds, all physical-education majors, as subjects...
Cardinal tenet in Dr. Hellebrandt's theory is that if one set of muscles cannot be effectively exercised (as after paralytic polio, when one limb or one side of the body may be affected), it can nevertheless be built up by exercising healthy muscles near by, or the corresponding set on the opposite side. Significant evidence: one subject exercised her left forearm flexor, got a 76% increase in its strength, plus a 20% boost in its antagonist extensor muscle, and an amazing 130% in the unexercised right flexor and 50% in the right extensor...
Forget the Pain. Why? In everyday, nonstressful use of muscles, Dr. Hellebrandt holds, man leaves them largely under the control of his highest reasoning centers (in the cerebral cortex). But in extremis, as in the agony phase of exhaustion or in a crisis when a man finds the superhuman strength to lift one corner of a heavy automobile to free his trapped child, the cortex shuts down and the primitive brain centers take over. It is in this state that Dr. Hellebrandt sees the crossover effect of muscle building, and that is why she pushes her coed volunteers...
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