Fig. 2. Overview of the experimental design for the long-term (A) and short-term (B) recovery experiments. (A) The upper part outlines the experimental period; rats were loaded on days 1, 3 and 5 and then killed on day 16. The lower panel details a single loading day. Time of day appears across the top of the diagram. Each filled box within the diagram indicates a loading bout; the number inside the box indicates the number of cycles applied during that bout. The 0 h recovery group received a single bout of 360 cycles, which is equivalent to administering four bouts of 90 cycles with no time between each of the four bouts. Note that, at the end of each loading day, all rats (excluding those in the control group) had been given 360 load cycles. (B) The top panel outlines the experimental period; rats were loaded on days 1–5 and 8–12 and then killed on day 16. Rats were administered 36 load cycles per day with one of the following recovery periods introduced between cycles: 0.5 s (back-to-back cycles, i), 3.5 s (ii), 7 s (iii) or 14 s (iv). The 0.5 s group was loaded for 18 s (36 cycles at 2 Hz), the 3.5 s group was loaded for 2 min, the 7 s group was loaded for 4 min and 14 s group was loaded for 8 min (the total duration of the loading session is not shown on the figure for the 3.5, 7 and 14 s groups).
