Martino V. Franchi

Age isn’t a limit — it’s a starting line!
Exceptional physiological profile behind the 80+ world-record holder in the 50-km run.
@frontiersin.bsky.social

Thanks to Genud Toledo and the entire TrajectorAGE team
@SPorcelli @mvfranchi.bsky.social @JulianAlcazar

www.frontiersin.org/journals/phy...

An elderly woman in a blue Italy tracksuit strikes a running stance on a track, showing strength, focus, and vitality.

A 92-yr-old retired science teacher breaks sprinting world records. Her muscle cells look like that of someone a fraction of her age. How does she do it? Read more about APS members' work in @washingtonpost.com: ow.ly/qHC250WRmEX @MVFranchi.bsky.social #ISpyPhysiology 🧪

This study by Jolet Y. Mimpen et al. explores cellular changes in ruptured human quadriceps tendons at single-cell resolution 🔬 💉

📜 Read the #Research here: physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/...

@uofguelph.bsky.social Alex presenting some of her NSERC summer undergrad work at the CBS undergrad research day! @hinksave.bsky.social @mvfranchi.bsky.social

🏥➡️💪 1 in 3 older adults lose independence after hospital discharge.
But exercise might be the key to recovery.
Hot off The @thelancet.com #TheLancetHealthyLongevity press: A meta-analysis with BIG implications.

This was a very cool project to work on!
More to come on this topic from our lab, I hope soon!

Nice work from @mvfranchi.bsky.social !!!

Very excited to see this Translational Perspective by Asst Prof @mvfranchi.bsky.social, Dr Christopher Fry, and Prof Michael Kjaer discussing our recent transcriptomics study on the early injury response in human quadriceps tendons in @jphysiol.bsky.social.

Special Issue: Cardiac, skeletal muscle and neuromuscular plasticity in disuse and inactivity: The Journal of Physiology: Vol 603, No 13 <em>The Journal of Physiology</em> publishes research in all areas of physiology and pathophysiology that illustrates new physiological principles or mechanisms.

Our Special Issue is live in J Physiology! w/ @mvfranchi.bsky.social & Prof. Paul Greenhaff “Cardiac, skeletal muscle and neuromuscular plasticity in disuse and inactivity”. So many great contributions! Add it to your reading list #myotwitter physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14697793...

To our incredible volunteers —

Your support was the heartbeat of the 30th ECSS Annual Congress.

Every smile, every helping hand, every moment you devoted made a lasting impact. You were the team behind the scenes & we couldn’t have done it without you. 🙏👏

#WeAreSportScience #ECSS2025

microRNA-1 Regulates Metabolic Flexibility by Programming Adult Skeletal Muscle Pyruvate Metabolism Metabolic flexibility refers to the ability of a tissue to adjust cellular fuel choice in response to conditional changes in metabolic demand and acti…

A tour de force! Mouse, worm, and human data all telling the same story. Amazing! “microRNA-1 Regulates Metabolic Flexibility by Programming Adult Skeletal Muscle Pyruvate Metabolism” www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Insulin- and exercise-induced phosphoproteomics of human skeletal muscle identify REPS1 as a regulator of muscle glucose uptake Skeletal muscle glucose uptake, essential for metabolic health, is regulated by both insulin and exercise. Using phosphoproteomics, we analyze skeleta…

Insulin- and exercise-induced phosphoproteomics of human skeletal muscle identify REPS1 as a regulator of muscle glucose uptake
Great collaboration with @adeshmukh.bsky.social @JeppeKjaergaard.bsky.social and team @cbmr.science

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Reprogramming metabolic gene expression during active recovery following disuse Click on the article title to read more.

A new Translational Perspective published in
@jphysiol.bsky.social by Mark Viggars and @kaesser.bsky.social related to our previous manuscript on disuse and retraining

physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/...

Some of our new findings from the Trajector-AGE study - check them out!

-Short-term disuse shapes the adaptive response to resistance training-

New Journal Club article from @jphysiol.bsky.social about our recent article (in the post below).

physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/...

If applied chronically they likely lead to fascicle lengthening and thus optimisation and broadening of the plateau for optimal force production of the L-T relationship!

🚨APPLICATIONS CLOSE FRIDAY 21st FEBRUARY🚨

For our 2025 Editorial Board Fellowship scheme!

Read about Matt Fogarty's experience as an Editorial Fellow🎓👇

🔗 https://buff.ly/2s5K83y

📢 The abstract submission deadline is almost here — submit NOW & be part of one of Europe's leading sport science events!

Don't miss your chance to present at the 30th ECSS Annual Congress in #Rimini, #Italy (1–4 July 2025). For more info, visit https://buff.ly/4aTYSqF

#WeAreSportScience #ECSS2025

As inactivity and muscle disuse are frequent phenomena associated with sedentary lifestyles or with limb or whole-body immobilisation due to illness and hospitalisation, we hope that these data could be useful especially for clinical and rehabilitation settings.

This may suggests that muscle could enhance metabolic recovery before hypertrophy per se in response to RT following muscle disuse.

We propose that prior exposure to short-term muscle unloading may drive the nature of molecular adaptations to subsequent RT.

However, in contrast with what is usually observed after RT, oxidative metabolism, slow fibre type and mitochondrial dynamics were enhanced beyond expected!

From our RNAseq data, the most differentially expressed genes belonged to oxidative phosphorylation pathways.

Because during inactivity marked loss of muscle power, strength and mass are observed practitioners may tend to favour resistance exercise (RT) as an ideal recovery strategy.

Indeed, RT was successful in recovering functional & structural muscle properties after 10 days of ULLS

With an integrative physiological approach, we aimed to elucidate the basic mechanisms of muscle function recovery after 21 days of resistance exercise that followed 10 days of unilateral lower limb suspension (ULLS) in humans

Although exercise can be beneficial in reversing such alterations, only a few studies have focused on the effects of exercise following muscle unloading.
Thus, we know the effects of exercise alone - but do we know how we would respond to exercise coming from a disue period?

Have you ever experienced an abrupt cessation of physical activity (or total reduction if bed ridden) for example, because of a sports injury? Or during hospitalisation and recovery after surgeries?

Short-term muscle unloading leads to loss of muscle mass and strength

Previous short‐term disuse dictates muscle gene expression and physiological adaptations to subsequent resistance exercise Abstract figure legend Eleven young healthy males underwent 10 days of unilateral lower limb suspension (ULLS) followed by a 21 day period of active recovery (AR) using resistance exercise performed ...

🚨New article from our lab!🚨
Out in @jphysiol.bsky.social

-Previous short-term disuse dictates muscle gene expression and physiological adaptations to subsequent resistance exercise-

A true collaborative effort! (see the thread below for more)

physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....