Joint angle-specific neuromuscular time course of recovery after isometric resistance exercise at shorter and longer muscle lengths

When you do exercises that stretch your muscles more through a bigger movement—like doing full squats instead of tiny half-squats—you may build more muscle tissue than when you stay in a shorter, more restricted movement range.

Exercises that position biarticulate muscles at longer lengths (via joint angle manipulation) produce greater hypertrophy in those biarticulate muscle heads compared to exercises that place them at shorter lengths.

Even though your muscles feel just as sore and your blood shows similar signs of damage after doing leg exercises with your knee bent far back or only slightly bent, your muscles are actually weaker and harder to activate for longer after the deep bend version.

Doing strength exercises with your knee bent further back makes your muscles weaker and harder to activate for up to two days afterward—even when you’re testing them at different knee angles—compared to doing the same exercise with your knee less bent.

After doing leg exercises with your knee bent all the way back, your muscles are weaker not just at that angle—but even more so when you try to use them with your knee only slightly bent, as if your muscle fibers got stretched out and lost their normal power.

If you do leg exercises with your knee only slightly bent, your muscles stay strong at that angle—even right after the workout—but if you do them with your knee fully bent, your muscles get weaker at that angle and also at other angles.