KNOW YOUR MUSCLES
Muscle cells are permanent tissues; i.e. they have lost their ability to multiply. Muscles grow in size due to the growth of existing muscle fibers. Generally there are three types of muscles in our body- cardiac muscle and smooth muscle are the involuntary where as, skeletal muscle is voluntary muscle and particularly assumes importance in this context.
Functions of skeletal muscles are to contract to cause body movement and to provide stability for body posture. Each skeletal muscle must be able to contract with different levels of tension to perform these functions.
USE IT OR LOSE IT
Exercise physiology is one of the most sought for fields of medicine. Various experiments conducted in this field have proved many facts on how you can successfully develop and maintain your body. Basically there are two types of muscle contractions- isotonic contraction in which muscle shortens as it contracts and isometric contraction in which muscle contracts, but no shortening occurs. When the weight you lift is less than the actual weight you can lift, isotonic contraction results and this is preferred in a beginner as it helps to improve blood supply and there by nutrition to the muscle. To really build your body, isometric contraction is desired because it causes muscle hypertrophy.
Muscular hypertrophy is an increase in muscle mass and cross-sectional area. Progressive overload is a means of applying varying and intermittent levels of stress to skeletal muscle, making it adapt by generating comparable amounts of tension. Through exercise, the muscular work done against a progressively challenging overload leads to increases in muscle mass and cross-sectional area, referred to as hypertrophy. The muscle is able to adapt by increasing the size and amount of contractile proteins, which comprise the myofibrils within each muscle fiber (cell). This leads to an increase in the size of the individual muscle fibers and their consequent force production.
Each muscle can be hypertrophied by constantly contracting the respective muscle against load. Within just a few days, an untrained individual can achieve measurable strength gains resulting from "learning" to use the muscle. It can take as long as two months for actual hypertrophy to begin. The additional contractile proteins appear to be incorporated into existing myofibrils. Mechanical Load is necessary to induce muscle hypertrophy. Hypertrophy-Specific Training applies a "method" of mechanically loading the muscle to induce hypertrophy.
Taking a week of rest every time you load a muscle makes your exercise virtually useless as the previously gained mechanical advantage of your muscle will return to normal in about 36 hours. As this happens, hypertrophy will stop, though neural and metabolic adaptations can and may continue.
Things to Remember
It is necessary to either increase the load progressively or decrease the degree of conditioning to the load. Do proper warm up to ensure circulation and practice only the correct form of exercise. Do not exercise to an extent that will crank your joints. Don’t overload and break your muscle fibers. Any signs of musculo-skeletal pain have to be treated with proper rest and analgesics.
NUTRITION
To achieve a perfectly framed body, proper nutrition is equally important as exercise. Proteins are popularly known as body building units. So predominantly protein rich food has to be taken. Some proteins are deficient of one or more amino acids. So selecting the proper diet is important. For e.g. cereals are deficient in threonine, while pulses in lyseine. By combining pulses and cereals makes your diet good in proteins. Body proteins are constantly being made and used during your lifetime to maintain the functions of the cells and organs. Protein is needed to help to prevent muscle loss. Good sources of protein-rich foods are meats, fish, dairy products, dried beans and peas, or tofu. Dairy foods also provide calcium. Other protein foods such as meats, fish, and dried beans and peas are good sources of iron and zinc.
TYPES OF EXERCISES
There are mainly 4 types of exercise contractions to choose from, which all have their own benefits. What's common among all is they require some form of muscular contraction. They are:
1. Isotonic
2. Isometric
3. Eccentric
4. Isokinetic
Isotonic Exercise
All lifting exercises are isotonic contractions. In fact isotonic contractions are the most common, many exercises and activities involve this type of contraction. This happens when the muscle shortens as it contracts. Doing a sit up, throwing a ball, swinging a bat, lifting object up from lying position are other examples.
Isometric Exercise
An Isometric contraction happens when there is tension on the muscle but no movement is made causing the length of the muscle to remain the same. Bodybuilders make up their own exercises using Isometric contraction in order to develop strength. For e.g. attempting to lift an immoveable object, holding a weight at arm's length etc.
Eccentric Exercise
Eccentric contraction is the opposite of isotonic; the muscle lengthens as it gains tension. These are not as beneficial as the common Isotonic. For e.g. running downhill, walking downstairs etc.
Isokinetic Exercise
Isokinetic contraction causes the muscle to shorten as it gains tension with a constant speed over the entire range of motion; therefore these contractions require special exercise equipments.
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