Figure 9.

Short and long half-sarcomere lengths from an exemplar myofibril tested in this study. The shortest and longest half-sarcomeres are approximately 0.95 and 1.4 μm, while some half-sarcomeres are at optimal length for maximal force production based on the myofilament overlap theory (1.13–1.22 μm). Despite these differences that correspond to an expected force difference from the strongest to weakest half-sarcomere of approximately 30%, all half-sarcomeres were perfectly stable while supporting identical forces.