Muscular Physiology

Muscles are used for movement in the body. The largest portion of energy expenditure in the body happens in muscles while helping us perform daily activities with ease and improving our wellness. Muscular strength is the amount of force that a muscle can produce one time at a maximal effort, and muscular endurance is the ability to repeat a movement over an extended period of time. Resistance training is the method of developing muscular strength and muscular endurance, which in turns improves wellness. This chapter explores many ways to resistance train. However, achieving the best muscular performance requires the assistance of a trained professional.

Muscles are highly specialized to contract forcefully. Muscles are powered by muscle cells, which contract individually within a muscle to generate force. This force is needed to create movement.

There are over 600 muscles in the human body; they are responsible for every movement we make, from pumping blood through the heart and moving food through the digestive system, to blinking and chewing. Without muscle cells, we would be unable to stand, walk, talk, or perform everyday tasks.

Types of Muscle

There are three types of muscle:

1. Skeletal Muscle: Responsible for body movement.
2. Cardiac Muscle: Responsible for the contraction of the heart.
3. Smooth Muscle: Responsible for many tasks, including movement of food along intestines, enlargement and contraction of blood vessels, size of pupils, and many other contractions.

*Note* a description of Cardiac and Smooth muscles can be found in Chapter 3.5 – Types of Muscle Fibers. The remainder of this chapter will focus solely on Skeletal muscles.

Skeletal Muscle Structure and Function

Skeletal muscles are attached to the skeleton and are responsible for the movement of our limbs, torso, and head. They are under conscious control, which means that we can consciously choose to contract a muscle and can regulate how strong the contraction actually is. Skeletal muscles are made up of a number of muscle fibers. Each muscle fiber is an individual muscle cell and may be anywhere from 1 mm to 4 cm in length. When we choose to contract a muscle fiber—for instance we contract our bicep to bend our arm upwards—a signal is sent from our brain via the spinal cord to the muscle. This signals the muscle fibers to contract. Each nerve will control a certain number of muscle fibers. The nerve and the fibers it controls are called a motor unit. Only a small number of muscle fibers will contract to bend one of our limbs, but if we wish to lift a heavy weight then many more muscles fibers will be recruited to perform the action. This is called muscle fiber recruitment. As seen in Chapter 3 – Types of Muscle Fibers, Skeletal muscle fibers fall under three classifications: a) Slow oxidative (SO), b) Fast oxidative, and c) Fast glycolytic. As a reminder, the terms Slow vs Fast refer to the motor unit’s speed of recruitment/the fibers’ speed of contraction, while the terms Oxidative vs Glycolytic refer to whether the fiber mainly produces ATP in Aerobic or Anaerobic conditions. As this topic was covered in Chapter 3, it will not be further elaborated in this Chapter.

Each muscle fiber is surrounded by connective tissue called an external lamina. A group of muscle fibers are encased within more connective tissue called the endomysium. The group of muscle fibers and the endomysium are surrounded by more connective tissue called the perimysium.  A group of muscle fibers surrounded by the perimysium is called a muscle fascicule.  A muscle is made up of many muscle fasciculi, which are surrounded by a thick collagenous layer of connective tissue called the epimysium. The epimysium covers the whole surface of the muscle.

Muscle fibers also contain many mitochondria, which are energy powerhouses that are responsible for the aerobic production of energy molecules, or ATP molecules. Muscle fibers also contain glycogen granules as a stored energy source, and myofibrils, which are threadlike structures running the length of the muscle fiber. Myofibrils are made up of two types of protein:

1. Actin myofilaments
2. Myosin myofilaments

The Actin and Myosin filaments form the contractile part of the muscle, which is called the sarcomere. Myosin filaments are thick and dark when compared with actin filaments, which are much thinner and lighter in appearance. The actin and myosin filaments lie on top of one another; it is this arrangement of the filaments that gives muscle its striated or striped appearance. When groups of actin and myosin filaments are bound together by connective tissue they make the myofibrils. When groups of myofibrils are bound together by connective tissue, they make up muscle fibers.

The ends of the muscle connect to bone through a tendon. The muscle is connected to two bones in order to allow movement to occur through a joint. When a muscle contracts, only one of these bones will move. The point where the muscle is attached to a bone that moves is called the insertion. The point where the muscle is attached to a bone that remains in a fixed position is called the origin.

How Muscles Contract

Muscles are believed to contract through a process called the Sliding Filament Theory. In this theory, the muscles contract when actin filaments slide over myosin filaments resulting in a shortening of the length of the sarcomeres, and hence, a shortening of the muscle fibers. During this process the actin and myosin filaments do not change length when muscles contract, but instead they slide past each other. As a result, the muscle fiber becomes shorter and fatter in appearance. As a number of muscle fibers shorten at the same time, the whole muscle contracts and causes the tendon to pull on the bone it attaches to. This creates movement that occurs at the point of insertion.

For the muscle to return to normal (i.e., to lengthen), a force must be applied to the muscle to cause the muscle fibers to lengthen. This force can be due to gravity or due to the contraction of an opposing muscle group.

Skeletal muscles contract in response to an electric signal called an action potential. Action potentials are conducted along nerve cells before reaching the muscle fibers. The nerve cells regulate the function of skeletal muscles by controlling the number of action potentials that are produced. The action potentials trigger a series of chemical reactions that result in the contraction of a muscle.

When a nerve impulse stimulates a motor unit within a muscle, all of the muscle fibers controlled by that motor unit will contract. When stimulated, these muscle fibers contract on an all-or-nothing basis. The all-or-nothing principle means that muscle fibers either contract maximally along their length or not at all. Therefore, when stimulated, muscle fibers contract to their maximum level and when not stimulated there is no contraction. In this way, the force generated by a muscle is not regulated by the level of contraction by individual fibers, but rather it is due to the number of muscle fibers that are recruited to contract. This is called muscle fiber recruitment. When lifting a light object, such as a book, only a small number of muscle fibers will be recruited. However, those that are recruited will contract to their maximum level. When lifting a heavier weight, many more muscle fibers will be recruited to contract maximally.

When one muscle contracts, another opposing muscle will relax. In this way, muscles are arranged in pairs. An example is when you bend your arm at the elbow: you contract your bicep muscle and relax your tricep muscle. This is the same for every movement in the body. There will always be one contracting muscle and one relaxing muscle. If you take a moment to think about these simple movements, it will soon become obvious that unless the opposing muscle is relaxed, it will have a negative effect on the force generated by the contracting muscle.

A muscle that contracts, and is the main muscle group responsible for the movement, is called the agonist or prime mover. The muscle that relaxes is called the antagonist. One of the effects that regular strength training has is an improvement in the level of relaxation that occurs in the opposing muscle group. Although the agonist/antagonist relationship changes, depending on which muscle is responsible for the movement, every muscle group has an opposing muscle group.

Below are examples of agonist and antagonist muscle group pairings:

Smaller muscles may also assist the agonist during a particular movement. The smaller muscle is called the synergist. An example of a synergist would be the deltoid (shoulder) muscle during a press-up. The front of the deltoid provides additional force during the push-up; however, most of the force is applied by the pectoralis major (chest). Other muscle groups may also assist the movement by helping to maintain a fixed posture and prevent unwanted movement. These muscle groups are called fixators. An example of a fixator is the shoulder muscle during a bicep curl or tricep extension.

Types of Muscular Contraction

Isometric: This is a static contraction where the length of the muscle, or the joint angle, does not change. An example is pushing against a stationary object such as a wall. This type of contraction is known to lead to rapid rises in blood pressure.

Isotonic: This is a moving contraction, also known as dynamic contraction. During this contraction the muscle fattens, and there is movement at the joint.

Types of Isotonic Contraction

Concentric: This is when the muscle contracts and shortens against a resistance. This may be referred to as the lifting or positive phase. An example would be the lifting phase of the bicep curl.

Eccentric: This occurs when the muscle is still contracting and lengthening at the same time. This may be referred to as the lowering or negative phase.