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Understanding Muscle Fibers
by priest943, Moderator @ www.IronLife.com
From the day you are born you have a set muscle fiber arrangement. There's nothing that can be done to change it. But you can take advantage of your knowledge of how the muscle fibers of each muscle are arranged. Some are made for speed, some for strength and some for stabilization. In theory if you train the different fibers the way they were meant to be you can experience new muscular growth.
By knowing how to take advantage of your leverage systems will greatly increase your strength. There is more to working out than simply lifting weights. You will need to study the movements. Using 100% strict form is not always the best way to increase strength.
There is also the question of tissue leverage interstitial and intracellular leverage stemming from fat deposits (both subcutaneous and intramuscular ), sarcoplasmic content, satellite cell proliferation and the accumulation of intra and extra cellular fluid that can augment both force output and gross size.
In theory site oil and frequent injections could impair muscle and strength gains by causing the accumulation of scar tissue. Deep massage a whirlpool or hard beating shower can help tremendously in eliminating or avoiding these strength and size limiting factors.
Heredity controls fiber typing but because of fusion of satellite cells some conversion within the type 2 fiber can take place. Remember the white muscle fibers (the ones that contract explosively ) have a greater capacity for hypertrophy than red ones (slow twitch fibers) using Explosive lifting will selectively stress your white fibers.
Tendons and ligaments also contribute to strength output. Maximum limit strength will increase your ability to inflict maximum adaptive stress. Low rep training will greatly thicken tendons and ligaments.
Myofibrils are the actual contractile elements within your working muscles. Increased myofibrillarization will give you that much sought after muscle density. Firing as many muscle fibers as possible is the name of the game in speed and strength. For bodybuilders achieving maximum fiber recruitment will insure maximum myofibrillarization.
Understanding how your muscles produce energy and learning how to manipulate the biochemical process hold an important key to maximizing your training efficacy. The only substances that will cause your muscles to contract are ATP (adenosine triphosphate ) and you run out of it quickly. Creatine phosphate is then broken down to produce more ATP and you run out of it quickly as well. Glycogen stored in muscles has to be metabolized in order to make more creatine phosphate. Lactic acid is formed by the metabolic process of glycogen utilization and causes fatigue and forces your muscles to stop contracting. It is also my belief that creatine supplementation will increase your ability to train longer and harder.
Capillaries facilitate the transport of nutrients and oxygen to your working muscles. They also get rid of metabolic wastes formed as a result of energy expenditure. The amazing thing about capillaries is you can radically increase their extensiveness in a muscle so you can speed more nutrients in and more wastes out to support more muscle growth. This is done threw high rep training.
High rep training will also increase mitochondria they are tiny organelles inside your muscles cells that manufacture ATP and perform all other oxidative functions inside the cell .they also take up a lot of space in muscles and contribute to over all mass.
During contraction damage is caused to the muscle. The micro trauma to these fibers causes certain biochemical's to be released into the interstitial spaces causing the adjacent satellite cells (noncontractile cells) to fuse with damaged contractile cells. Giving the muscle greater resistance to damage and greater size.
The build up of lactic acid inside your working muscles causes sensations of pain because your nerve endings are irritated. Tiny tears in your muscle caused by lifting heavy weights produces a caustic amino acid called hydroxyproline to irritate surrounding nerve endings. This causes pain by massive destruction of tissue. To put it simply the more pain you can handle the harder you can train.
A better understanding of how a muscle works will enable you to achieve greater size and strength. Training threw all rep ranges will produce more muscle growth than just sticking to the standard 8-10.
* Article by priest943, Moderator @ www.IronLife.com.
* Back to Issue #7 Frontpage
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