With the introduction of such modern conveniences such as the automobile, remote control, and even the electric toothbrush people are relying on technology to do everything for them. With a generation growing up in todays society physical tasks have almost become obsolete. Tasks such as even going shopping and going out to visit a friend can be done from the comfort of your own computer. With this sedentary lifestyle, muscular size will almost be unnecessary, except for the athlete who wants to succeed in sports.
To the non-athlete, there will be no reason to leave the house because everything that you need will be at your ingertips, you will not have to get up and do anything. Any type of exercise is good for the body and muscles. Muscle growth is essential if you want to look better, feel better, and perform everyday tasks such as walking to the car, and getting out of bed easier. A person who is in shape will also sleep better then an out of shape person, and feel more revitalized in the morning.
Muscles account for approximently 35% of the body weight in women, and about 45% of the body weight in men. With over 600 muscles covering the human skeleton muscles give the body bulk and form. Then human body contains millions of uscle fibres whose coordinated contraction cause the whole muscle to contract. Muscles are the foundation on which our bodies are built. Without muscles our bodies could not perform the simplest tasks such as opening our eyes, talking, breathing and even the pumping of our heart or the most difficult tasks, such as running the hurdles in a track and field event..
Muscles are also important to maintain balance and posture. Description of Muscles In the body there are several types of muscles that control different functions in the body, one of these types being skeletal muscle. Skeletal muscle is the ost evident in the human body due to it having the most mass the other types of muscles and that it lies directly under the skin attached to the skeleton by tendons and ligaments. Skeletal muscles are divided into three structural units, the entire muscle, the muscle bundle, and the muscle fiber (cell).
Each muscle fiber is divided into two types of fiber structure, fusiform and pennate, with the pennate being broken up into three basic structures. These structures being the unipennate, bipennate, and multipennate. Notice the longditudinal grain of the fusiform muscles (left) compared the pennate muscles. (below) Striated muscle tissue (above) is associated with the muscles related to the skeleton and movement. Striated muscle tissue is the muscle tissue located directly under the skin and are the muscles that are the most visible.
There are two types muscles in skeletal muscles, these are fast twitch and slow twitch muscles. Fast twitch muscles have a fast form of myosin ATP and are very good of delivering calcium to the muscle cell. Slow twitch muscles have a slow form of myosin ATP and are not very good at delivering calcium to the muscle cell. Fast twitch muscle fibers reach peak tension more then twice as fast as low twitch muscles, making them more explosive muscles which would be more desirable for athletes such as sprinters. Notice the dark slow twitch fibers and the light slow twitch fibers magnified.
The fast twitch fibers tire more easily then the lighter slow twitch fibers. Causes of Muscle Growth Muscles growth (hypertrophy) takes place in the muscle fiber themselves. When a muscle grows there is not a increase in the amount of muscle fibers, since this is set at birth, but rather an increase in the size of those muscle fibers, and an increase in the amount of connective tissue in the muscle. Muscle fibers are nlarged through resistant training, or regular activity by stimulating the amount of the contractile proteins, actin and myosin.
What this does is make more cross bridges available to do more work. Muscle fibers with no apparent resistant training Muscle fibers with considerably more resistant training The stimulus that tells the muscle to grow is a result of two things, the shortening of the muscle against a resistance and the intensity of the contraction. For growth process to start a point must be made in your workout where the exercised muscle is working near maximal capacity against a resistance, nd the relative intensity of the exercise is very high.
When performed just right, a highly intense resistant exercise disrupts cell wall and cellular microfilaments, which begins the growth process. A: General Adaptation Syndrome (G. A. S) The way our muscles respond to training is the same way that any other stimulus response mechanism in our body responds to a stressor. This mechanism is called the General Adaptation Syndrome. If a muscle is given a stimulus (stressor) that it is not accustomed to it will respond by going through three stages.
The first of these stages is called the alarm stage. The alarm stage occurs immediately after a very intense stimulation, muscle cells are disrupted, and later on muscle soreness is felt. This happens because the muscle that is being trained is not accustomed to this stimulus and is slightly injured trying to respond to it. The second stage is the resistant stage, this is where muscle hypertrophy takes place. The muscle responds to the damage by rebuilding and restoring the muscle tissue.
In the third stage the muscle not only has repaired the damaged muscle, but will now add new muscle proteins to avoid having the muscle slightly injured like it was in the alarm stage. This addition of muscle proteins will cause the muscle to become bigger and stronger in order to be able to properly handle that type of stress again. Another factor in muscle growth is genetics. Genetically, men have the potential to have more muscle growth then women because of the higher testosterone levels that they have.
Another genetics factor in muscle growth is what body type you have. An ecotmorph, will have a very high metabolic, and may have a very hard time gaining weight, whether it be muscle or fat, and an endomorph will not have as hard of a time gaining muscle mass, but must be very areful because of a low metabolic rate, will also gain fat very easily. The ideal body type for muscle growth is the mesomorph body type. Mesomorphs are generally athletically skilled, and there body type has a predominance of muscle, bone and connective tissue.
Artificial” Muscle Growth One way which muscle growth is achieved more rapidly then just by resistant training, is with the aid of artificial growth hormones, most notably, anabolic steroids. Steroids are compounds that resemble the natural male hormone testosterone. Testosterone has an anabolic effect in the body, and is produced naturally in he body, but only a small portion of the testerone produced naturally are used for the anabolic (muscle growth) effect, but rather for the androgenic (male sexual characteristics) effect.
Steroids are constructed synthetically to maximize the anabolic effect, and to minimize the androgenic effect. Steroids are taken mainly for the person who wants the quick results of muscle growth, and to increase athletic performance. Steroids cause many negative side effects in the body, which include: increased aggressiveness, increased acne, development of facial in women, development of gynecomastia (breast like tissue) n males, just to name a few.
Steroids use is most prolific in sports such as bodybuilding and professional football. Even though these sports have their own testing programs very few athletes are ever caught using steroids, or other growth hormones. It is estimated that approximently 90% of players in the NFL, and approximently 99%-100% of professional body builders take anabolic steroids, or some other type of anabolic hormone. These growth hormones are taken to gain excess muscle size and strength in order to gain the competitive edge on their opponent.