Anyone know Biology/Medicine?

[SwiftSpear]

This might be a weird question, but I've been wondering about the specifics in terms of the science of muscle growth recently.

It seems to me there are 3 basic attributes every muscle has, it's capacity of lifting strength, it's ability to move quickly or explosiveness, and it's long term endurance.

Now, I already know that to increase strength you increase size, you break down the muscle through heavy lifting which causes tears in the tissue, which grow the size of that muscle as they heal closed, in turn causing greater strength the next time. There's some question as to the role lactic acid plays, but apparently scientists aren't sure there either, so I'm not going to stress out about that.

The question are, what are the physiological effects of increasing muscle explosivity and endurance? Practically speaking I know that the common method of training those attributes is impact calisthenics/moving fast and likewise repetitive calisthenics or long periods of moderate muscle use.

I've guessed that in terms of increasing the explosivity of a limb you're going to want to increase the tensile strength of the ligaments... but I can only guess as to what the biological science of doing that is, and there has to be some sort of other factor as well, chatting with someone I heard them suggest nervous structure, so if your nerves are able to tell the muscle to fire at a greater rate of speed, the muscle will respond likewise? Once again, is there a biological process responsible for the steady growth of this over time?

I have no clue in terms of endurance... logically speaking it would seem likely that a strong muscle would also have greater endurance, but that doesn't seem to be the case... Maby something to do with oxygen absorption? It seems muscles with more endurance in the body are tougher, that is to say, if you were going to eat a muscle, an endurance muscle will be more chewy, much like the heart, where a strength muscle will be more tender... But once again, I'd like to know the biological process behind that.

Anyways, anyone do some higher level biology courses that might shed some light?

[smoth]

it's lupus

[Beherith]

- Mommy, what do we say when someone sneezes?
- We say god bless you, dear.
- And Mommy, what do we say when someone is bleeding rectally?
- Thats it, you're not watching any more House.

[TheRegisteredOne]

you're*

[Spawn_Retard]

it's lupus

Damn you smoth, why did you have to steal the only funny option in which this thread would take.

[SwiftSpear]

If no one knows just let the thread die please.

[KingRaptor]

I am studying biology, but human physiology isn't my field.

Why don't you go ask a doctor?

[Argh]

The question are, what are the physiological effects of increasing muscle explosivity and endurance?

What I found briefly online indicates that basically the chief physiological effects are better contraction speeds (as opposed to power, which is total movement speed of the body / part) and that combining explosivity and endurance seems to be a key contribution to certain types of sports that don't involve much power but require pacing of muscular contractions to prevent / mitigate fatigue.

IOW, you don't want to arm-wrestle with somebody who has more power than you, but you can probably out-run them if you have an advantage of explosivity and endurance, once you pass sprint ranges. Atheletes in any sport that's complex enough that their bodies are going to be required to combine all three areas (such as soccer) require a very different training regimen than sports that mainly rely on one or two areas. Each type of muscular development affects the muscle fibers differently, and it's apparently a tradeoff- the reason why world-class short-distance runners can't win marathons is because their powerful musculature and high explosivity is literally massive, and they suffer from weight / endurance mismatches vs. the tall skinny people who generally win in those kinds of events.

Endurance training is both about muscles (muscles gain the ability to deal with lactic acid better when they're used in certain ways on a regular basis) and about the entire cardiovascular system. This is one of many reasons why even NFL nose guards do a lot of running- they are, generally, very powerful human beings, but they need that endurance to stay in the game.

Anybody who's played (American) football can tell you that it's a sport where it seems like people stand around a lot on T.V., but it doesn't feel that way to the athletes- they're doing giant bursts of intense activity over and over again, which is really tiring. That's why the players often seem downright sloppy by the end of a NFL game, even though most of them are trained to a very high standard. The same is less true in soccer, where there's more constant load (running back and forth) but less peak load (fewer leaping or tackling maneuvers, and less sprinting).

At any rate, everything I saw indicated that there are different weight-training regimes that are recommended for people trying to build up different elements of the three types of strength, and that your genetics are pretty darn important, too- you can't turn a nose-guard into a marathon runner or the reverse, at the top tiers of the sports, because they have different body chemistry and very different structure to their muscles. So, it's hard to say where the training ends and the genetic differences really become paramount- obviously, training will have strong effects on what types of strength you raise, but your genetics will not necessarily let you develop to the full extent needed for certain sports.

[PicassoCT]

Wikibombing from Orbit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid_cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myoblast

Sorry, to laz-busy at the moment to write an Answer on my own..
There are stemcells there, that part, so much i understood, and they have those little Energygenerators, which come in a two way variation, intense, highpower, or long, lowpower... whatever you want, the training got to be diffrent...

Always funny to challenge Bodybuilders into a Race, after two Kilometers, they are swollenUp like Elephants- and can┬┤t move a limb, not matter how hard they wish for it...

On the other hand, Endurance doesen┬┤t save you from a critical Hit..

[Spawn_Retard]

If no one knows just let the thread die please.

It's lupus

[Panda]

You would have to talk to an exercise physiologist in order to find out more about this topic, but I've always been an active person, have taken quite a few different kinds of workout classes before, and have done some research into this area so I know a good bit about it. However, I have never really done weight lifting.

Basically, people can inherit muscles which have a tendency to either be fast twitch or slow twitch muscles. Fast twitch muscles are more slim and lean and are better used for doing activities which require speed and are great for agility if the person is flexible; like acrobatics, gymnastics, martial arts (whip kicks and fast punches), or speed races in swimming. Slow twitch muscles are better for things like weight lifting and tend to be larger than fast twitch muscles, but are not necessarily tenderized like the muscles that your are eating when you eat a tenderized a steak.

More bulky muscles store fat more easily than less bulky muscles do and, regardless of what kind of muscles a person inherited, a person can do different types of exercises in order to increase their speed or strength (such as strengthening exercises that utilize water resistance in a pool, like different kinds of kicks) if they don't have an innate talent for that kind of thing.

Endurance requires some amount of strength, so someone who is a track athlete doesn't need to have really stocky legs, but they can't have very skinny legs either. For example, a marathon runner would need to would need to develop the slow-twitch muscles that they have, but a short-distance sprinter wouldn't have to do that as much.

Nerves do have something to do with how well you are able to control your muscles and how well you are able to control those muscles with your nervous system is another inherited trait, but you can increase your muscle memory and your ability to control your muscles by focusing while exercising and doing repetitive movements.

Your body's ability to utilize oxygen does have an effect on your endurance which is why it's important to practice proper breathing techniques (learned that in swimming and singing). When there is not enough oxygen left for your muscles to use in order to produce ATP (energy), your cells switch from the Krebs cycle to the citric acid cycle where it utilizes pyruvate and the mitochondria don't produce as much ATP. Then you get worn out and have sore muscles (learned that in Zoology). You can easily find out more about this on wikipedia or in a Zoology textbook if you like.

[jcnossen]

Krebs cycle to the citric acid cycle

Wikipedia says the citric acid cycle is the krebs cycle. IIRC when there isnt enough oxygen available, mitochondria switch to anaerobic production of ATP (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_organism), which creates lactic acid.

I'm still waiting for a method to inject chloroplasts into my skin so I can just lie in the sun if I'm too lazy to make dinner..

[Spawn_Retard]

Krebs cycle to the citric acid cycle

Wikipedia says the citric acid cycle is the krebs cycle. IIRC when there isnt enough oxygen available, mitochondria switch to anaerobic production of ATP (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_organism), which creates lactic acid.

I'm still waiting for a method to inject chloroplasts into my skin so I can just lie in the sun if I'm too lazy to make dinner..

it's lupus

[Panda]

Krebs cycle to the citric acid cycle

Wikipedia says the citric acid cycle is the krebs cycle. IIRC when there isnt enough oxygen available, mitochondria switch to anaerobic production of ATP (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_organism), which creates lactic acid.

I'm still waiting for a method to inject chloroplasts into my skin so I can just lie in the sun if I'm too lazy to make dinner..

We're not anaerobic organisms and this article says that what I was saying was correct:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_respiration

"Citric acid cycle
Main article: Citric acid cycle
This is also called the Krebs cycle or the tricarboxylic acid cycle. When oxygen is present, acetyl-CoA is produced from the pyruvate molecules created from glycolysis. Once Acetyl CoA is formed, two processes can occur, aerobic or anaerobic respiration. When oxygen is present, the mitochondria will undergo aerobic respiration which leads to the Krebs cycle. However, if oxygen is not present, fermentation of the pyruvate molecule will occur. In the presence of oxygen, when acetyl-CoA is produced, the molecule then enters the citric acid cycle (Krebs cycle) inside the mitochondrial matrix, and gets oxidized to CO2 while at the same time reducing NAD to NADH. NADH can be used by the electron transport chain to create further ATP as part of oxidative phosphorylation. To fully oxidize the equivalent of one glucose molecule, two acetyl-CoA must be metabolized by the Krebs cycle. Two waste products, H2O and CO2, are created during this cycle."

[SwiftSpear]

Basically, people can inherit muscles which have a tendency to either be fast twitch or slow twitch muscles. Fast twitch muscles are more slim and lean and are better used for doing activities which require speed and are great for agility if the person is flexible; like acrobatics, gymnastics, martial arts (whip kicks and fast punches), or speed races in swimming. Slow twitch muscles are better for things like weight lifting and tend to be larger than fast twitch muscles, but are not necessarily tenderized like the muscles that your are eating when you eat a tenderized a steak.

So your tendancy towards one or another in terms of maximums is genetics. Yes.

The real question being, if I'm training endurance and/or strength, and/or speed. How much do I have to worry about one type of training negatively effecting the other types?

I'm was wondering, when I started weight training, to a slight degree my hand speed decreased. Now, I can explain some of that as an increase in weight of the limb in question, more momentum = greater difficulty of control, but if I start doing arm and leg impact calisthenics is that going to negatively effect strength growth?

[REVENGE]

Hmm, what do you want to be? I'm assuming you don't want to purely specialize in muscular strength, ie weightlifter or bodybuilder. You want a degree of agility/flexibility. From what I can tell, you're correct in implying that speed and strength impose mutual limits on each other, so that you can't "max" yourself out in both directions at the same time. You're probably genetically predisposed to somewhere within a range of *easily gaining muscle mass* to *easily developing flexibility/agility*, so I guess you should probably do a fair amount of both types of training without too much worry. If you find that either you gain more muscle mass quickly or you gain more agility quickly, maybe you can train more in the area that you're not naturally predisposed to excelling at.

[Teutooni]

Afaik there are 2 types of muscle cells in voluntary muscles, the slow, enduring aerobic cells and fast, strong anaerobic ones. Genetics determine which is the predominant type. Training can afaik increase the effectiveness of the type of cell corresponding to the training. Long endurance training improves oxygen flow and waste removal in the muscle whereas explosive strength training increases ATP-reserves. Or something like that... I'm not sure if they effect each other, though.

[Spawn_Retard]

Afaik there are 2 types of muscle cells in voluntary muscles, the slow, enduring aerobic cells and fast, strong anaerobic ones. Genetics determine which is the predominant type. Training can afaik increase the effectiveness of the type of cell corresponding to the training. Long endurance training improves oxygen flow and waste removal in the muscle whereas explosive strength training increases ATP-reserves. Or something like that... I'm not sure if they effect each other, though.

It's lupus

[Regret]

The real question being, if I'm training endurance and/or strength, and/or speed. How much do I have to worry about one type of training negatively effecting the other types?

You don't have to worry at all.

[SwiftSpear]

Hmmm, so it seems, physiologically, strength training is the most universally non beneficial than if you want the greatest muscle efficiency regarding a ratio between the 3 major muscle attributes. Thanks whoever pointed out flexibility, it's a major muscle attribute I overlooked (theoretically speaking, I train flexibility but for whatever reason I wasn't considering it as a factor, but it would definitely be)

Where as physiologically speaking endurance training and speed training don't really have any negative effects on eachother at all? Aside from possibly getting too tired training one or the other to put the energy into training you should?