CPSS Foundational Scientific Disciplines 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which concept explains why an athlete must progressively increase training load over time to continue eliciting performance adaptations?
- Specificity principle
- Reversibility principle
- Progressive overload principle (Correct answer)
- Individual differences principle
Correct answer: Progressive overload principle
The progressive overload principle states that training stimuli must be systematically increased as the body adapts to prevent accommodation and continue driving adaptation.
Question 2: Satellite cells in skeletal muscle are primarily responsible for:
- Glycogen storage and release
- Muscle repair and hypertrophy via myonuclear donation (Correct answer)
- Calcium sequestration during contraction
- Oxygen delivery to contracting fibers
Correct answer: Muscle repair and hypertrophy via myonuclear donation
Satellite cells are muscle stem cells that activate upon damage or hypertrophic stimuli, proliferate, and fuse with existing fibers to donate myonuclei, enabling growth and repair.
Question 3: The sliding filament theory of muscle contraction states that sarcomere shortening occurs because:
- Actin and myosin filaments shorten simultaneously
- Myosin filaments slide over actin filaments causing Z-disc approximation
- Titin proteins actively compress the sarcomere
- Actin filaments slide toward the M-line pulled by myosin cross-bridges (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Actin filaments slide toward the M-line pulled by myosin cross-bridges
Actin thin filaments are pulled toward the M-line by cycling myosin cross-bridges, bringing the Z-discs closer together and shortening the sarcomere without filaments changing length.
Question 4: Validity in measurement refers to:
- The consistency of a test when repeated under the same conditions
- The degree to which a test measures what it claims to measure (Correct answer)
- The sensitivity of an instrument to detect small differences
- The objectivity of scoring among different raters
Correct answer: The degree to which a test measures what it claims to measure
Validity is the extent to which a measurement instrument actually measures the construct it is intended to assess, distinct from reliability which concerns consistency.
Question 5: Which pathway is the primary route for lactate clearance during moderate-intensity steady-state exercise?
- Conversion to alanine via transamination
- Oxidation as a fuel substrate in active muscles and the heart (Correct answer)
- Urinary excretion by the kidneys
- Conversion to ketone bodies in the liver
Correct answer: Oxidation as a fuel substrate in active muscles and the heart
During moderate exercise, lactate is shuttled to oxidative tissues (Type I fibers, cardiac muscle) where it is converted to pyruvate and oxidized for ATP via the Cori cycle variant.
Question 6: The stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) enhances force output primarily through:
- Metabolic ATP resynthesis during the eccentric phase
- Elastic energy storage in tendons and the myotatic reflex potentiation (Correct answer)
- Increased motor unit recruitment during slow lengthening
- Reduced oxygen consumption during subsequent concentric action
Correct answer: Elastic energy storage in tendons and the myotatic reflex potentiation
The SSC stores elastic potential energy in series elastic components (tendons) during eccentric loading and augments force via the muscle spindle-mediated stretch reflex during the concentric phase.
Question 7: In research design, a crossover study design offers which primary advantage over a parallel group design?
- Shorter study duration due to fewer measurements
- Each participant serves as their own control, reducing between-subject variance (Correct answer)
- Larger sample sizes can be recruited more easily
- Blinding of participants is easier to achieve
Correct answer: Each participant serves as their own control, reducing between-subject variance
Crossover designs use each participant in all conditions, eliminating inter-individual variability as a confound and increasing statistical power with smaller samples.
CPSS Foundational Scientific Disciplines 4
Which concept explains why an athlete must progressively increase training load over time to continue eliciting performance adaptations?