In the weight-bearing hindlimb soleus muscle of the rat, ∼90% of muscle fibers express the β-myosin heavy chain (β-MHC) isoform protein. Hindlimb suspension (HS) causes the MHC isoform population to shift from β toward the fast MHC isoforms. Our aim was to establish a model to test the hypothesis that this shift in expression is transcriptionally regulated through specific cis elements of the β-MHC promoter. With the use of a direct gene transfer approach, we determined the activity of different length β-MHC promoter fragments, linked to a firefly luciferase reporter gene, in soleus muscle of control and HS rats. In weight-bearing rats, the relative luciferase activity of the longest β-promoter fragment (−3500 bp) was threefold higher than the shorter promoter constructs, which suggests that an enhancer sequence is present in the upstream promoter region. After 1 wk of HS, the reporter activities of the −3500-, −914-, and −408-bp promoter constructs were significantly reduced (∼40%), compared with the control muscles. However, using the −215-bp construct, no differences in promoter activity were observed between HS and control muscles, which indicates that the response to HS in the rodent appears to be regulated within the −408 and −215 bp of the promoter.