These experiments explore the relationship between patterned impulse activity and contractile properties of skeletal muscles. Soleus (SOL) and extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscles of adult rats were denervated and stimulated directly from 4 to 15 weeks with the same number of pulse trains at different intratrain pulse frequencies (1-500 Hz), with different numbers of pulse trains (864-4,320,000 pulses/d) at the same intratrain pulse frequencies, or with different combinations of pulse trains at 10 and 100 Hz. Chronic stimulation of the denervated SOL resulted in twitch times-to-peak and half-relaxation times that varied in a graded manner between values longer than those in the normal SOL to values as fast as those in the normal EDL, depending upon the pattern used. Increasing pulse frequencies (constant number) resulted in faster twitches, lower twitch/tetanus ratios, increasing post-tetanic potentiations, and larger tetanic tensions. Increasing pulse numbers (constant frequencies) resulted in slower twitches, lower twitch/tetanus ratios, post-tetanic depressions, and higher fatigue indices. The effect of varying the pulse number on twitch parameters was greater at low frequencies (10-20 Hz) than at high frequencies (100 Hz). SOL muscles receiving pulse trains at both 10 and 100 Hz became much faster than muscles receiving pulse trains at 10 Hz only, even in the experiments where the stimulation pattern contained 9 times as many pulses at 10 as at 100 Hz. Chronic stimulation of both the denervated and the innervated EDL with large numbers of pulses at 10 or 15 Hz resulted in twitches that were only half as slow as those induced in the SOL by the same "slow" patterns. In addition, these patterns led to a marked decrease in maximum tetanic tension and a marked increase in twitch/tetanus ratio. During stimulation with a small number of pulses at 150 Hz, on the other hand, twitch speed, twitch/tetanus ratio, and maximum tetanic tension remained normal or almost normal. We conclude that the isometric twitch and related properties of the rat SOL muscle can be graded within wide "adaptive ranges" by varying either the number or the frequency of pulses. In the EDL, the corresponding adaptive ranges appear much narrower, suggesting that the EDL and the SOL contain intrinsically different muscle fibers.