MUSCLE BASICS 101
Part 1
Muscles are one of those things that most of us take completely for
granted, but they are incredibly important for two key reasons:
Muscles are the "engine" that your body uses to propel itself.
Although they work differently than a car engine or an electric motor,
muscles do the same thing -- they turn energy into motion.
It
would be impossible for you to do anything without your muscles.
Absolutely everything that you conceive of with your brain is expressed
as muscular motion. The only ways for you to express an idea are with
the muscles of your larynx, mouth and tongue (spoken words), with the
muscles of your fingers (written words or "talking with your hands") or
with the skeletal muscles (body language, dancing, running, building or
fighting, to name a few).
Because muscles are so crucial to
any animal, they are incredibly sophisticated. They are efficient at
turning fuel into motion, they are long-lasting, they are self-healing
and they are able to grow stronger with practice. They do everything
from allowing you to walk to keeping your blood flowing!
When
most people think of "muscles," they think about the muscles that we can
see. For example, most of us know about the biceps muscles in our arms.
But there are three unique kinds of muscle in any mammal's body:
Skeletal muscle is the type of muscle that we can see and feel.
When a body builder works out to increase muscle mass, skeletal muscle
is what is being exercised. Skeletal muscles attach to the skeleton and
come in pairs -- one muscle to move the bone in one direction and
another to move it back the other way. These muscles usually contract
voluntarily, meaning that you think about contracting them and your
nervous system tells them to do so. They can do a short, single
contraction (twitch) or a long, sustained contraction (tetanus).
Smooth muscle is found in your digestive system, blood vessels,
bladder, airways and, in a female, the uterus. Smooth muscle has the
ability to stretch and maintain tension for long periods of time. It
contracts involuntarily, meaning that you do not have to think about
contracting it because your nervous system controls it automatically.
For example, your stomach and intestines do their muscular thing all day
long, and, for the most part, you never know what's going on in there.
Cardiac muscle is found only in your heart, and its big features
are endurance and consistency. It can stretch in a limited way, like
smooth muscle, and contract with the force of a skeletal muscle. It is a
twitch muscle only and contracts involuntarily.
In this
article, we will look at the different types of muscles in your body and
the amazing technology that allows them to work so well. From here on,
we will focus on skeletal muscle. The basic molecular processes are the
same in all three types.
Skeletal-muscle Basics
Skeletal muscle is also called striated muscle, because when it is
viewed under polarized light or stained with an indicator, you can see
alternating stripes of light and dark.
Skeletal muscle has a
complex structure that is essential to how it contracts. We will tease
apart a skeletal muscle, starting with the largest structures and
working our way to the smaller ones.
The basic action of any
muscle is contraction. For example, when you think about moving your arm
using your biceps muscle, your brain sends a signal down a nerve cell
telling your biceps muscle to contract. The amount of force that the
muscle creates varies -- the muscle can contract a little or a lot
depending on the signal that the nerve sends. All that any muscle can do
is create contraction force.
A muscle is a bundle of many
cells called fibers. You can think of muscle fibers as long cylinders,
and compared to other cells in your body, muscle fibers are quite big.
They are from about 1 to 40 microns long and 10 to 100 microns in
diameter. For comparison, a strand of hair is about 100 microns in
diameter, and a typical cell in your body is about 10 microns in
diameter.
A muscle fiber contains many myofibrils, which are
cylinders of muscle proteins. These proteins allow a muscle cell to
contract. Myofibrils contain two types of filaments that run along the
long axis of the fiber, and these filaments are arranged in hexagonal
patterns. There are thick and thin filaments. Each thick filament is
surrounded by six thin filaments.
Thick and thin filaments are
attached to another structure called the Z-disk or Z-line, which runs
perpendicular to the long axis of the fiber (the myofibril that runs
from one Z-line to another is called a sarcomere). Running vertically
down the Z-line is a small tube called the transverse or T-tubule, which
is actually part of the cell membrane that extends deep inside the
fiber. Inside the fiber, stretching along the long axis between
T-tubules, is a membrane system called the sarcoplasmic reticulum, which
stores and releases the calcium ions that trigger muscle contraction.
Part 2 tomorrow
Body fat loss stuck on hold? Can't seem to lose that last little bit of fat?
This may be the problem.......
Artificial Sweeteners will over stimulate the hormones that make you
hungry and create a resistance too the hormones that suppress
hunger...... IT'S A DOUBLE EDGED SWORD!!!
Contrary to popular belief, studies have found that artificial sweeteners such as aspartame can stimulate your
appetite, increase carbohydrate cravings, and stimulate fat storage and
weight gain. In one of the most recent of such studies, saccharin and
aspartame were found to cause greater weight gain than sugar.
Aspartame is perhaps one of the most problematic. It is primarily
made up of aspartic acid and phenylalanine. The phenylalanine has been
synthetically modified to carry a methyl group, which provides the
majority of the sweetness. That phenylalanine methyl bond, called a
methyl ester, is very weak, which allows the methyl group on the
phenylalanine to easily break off and form methanol.
You
may have heard the claim that aspartame is harmless because methanol is
also found in fruits and vegetables. However, in fruits and vegetables,
the methanol is firmly bonded to pectin, allowing it to be safely passed
through your digestive tract. Not so with the methanol created by
aspartame; there it’s not bonded to anything that can help eliminate it
from your body.
Methanol acts as a Trojan horse; it's
carried into susceptible tissues in your body, like your brain and bone
marrow, where the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzyme converts it into
formaldehyde, which wreaks havoc with sensitive proteins and DNA. All
animals EXCEPT HUMANS have a protective mechanism that allows methanol
to be broken down into harmless formic acid. This is why toxicology
testing on animals is a flawed model. It doesn't fully apply to people.
Now a little education on the two hormones that artificial sweeteners effect.
A lot is known about what causes obesity. The simplest explanation is
that the genes that have protected us from famines for millions of years
are at the core of the cause of obesity. These powerful biochemical
systems are centered on a small area in the middle of the brain called
the hypothalamus. A specialized area in the hypothalamus, called the
arcuate nucleus, is where the signals that control metabolic rate,
hunger and satiety are located.
In the arcuate nucleus are two
cells types. One cell is the NPY/AGRP (Neuropeptide Y/Agouti Related
Protein) cell. This is the hunger cell. If it is stimulated you feel
hungry and your metabolic rate drops. The other cell is the POMC
(Proopiomelanocortin) cell. This is the satiety cell. If it is
stimulated you feel full and your metabolic rate increases.
The
two major hormones that control the hunger and satiety cells are
ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin is produced by the pancreas and travels to
the brain where it turns on the hunger cell and turns off the satiety
cell. Leptin is produced by the fat cells of the body and travels to the
brain where it turns on the satiety cell and turns off the hunger cell.
When you are obese you have lots of fat cells and thus your leptin
levels are high. The high leptin levels in combination with high insulin
levels turn off the stomach cells that make ghrelin so your ghrelin
levels are low. Now if that seems backward, your right. The problem is
that high leptin levels over time make the satiety cell insensitive to
leptin and low ghrelin levels make the hunger cell hypersensitive to
ghrelin. The result is that even though the leptin levels are high and
the ghrelin levels are low, the hunger cells are turned on and the
satiety cells are turned off.
This is exactly the situation
that occurs in a famine, hunger cells on and satiety cells off. So if
you are obese, even though you have plenty of fat stores, the brain
behaves like you were starving. This has many consequences. First and
foremost is a loss of the conscious signals that tell you when you are
full and when you are hungry. A common sign of this is that most obese
people don't feel hungry when they get up in the morning. As a result
they often skip breakfast. The brain interprets this as more starvation
signals and further shuts down the metabolism. In fact the number one
risk factor for obesity was skipping breakfast.
Ghrelin is also
important in many other functions of the body. One of the most
important is sleep. In order to efficiently progress though the normal
cycles of sleep you need adequate ghrelin levels. If you don't have them
you will not sleep as efficiently, you will dream less and get less
restorative sleep. This will make you more tired the next day and since
dreaming promotes leptin production, you will be hungrier and have a
lower metabolic rate.
The imbalance of leptin and ghrelin are at the heart of the cause and consequences of obesity.
Now I know your thinking to yourself this only effects obese people not
someone like me that only needs to drop a few more pounds, right?
WRONG, I am especially talking you you folks that just need to drop a
few pounds and in particular those of you getting ready for a
competition.
You see the leaner your body becomes the more
sensitive it becomes too. Drop the artificial sweeteners and see the
difference for yourself. You will be amazed at how quickly your body
will respond and those last few fat pockets will vanish.
Just what is a Calorie?
A calorie is a unit of energy. We tend to associate calories with food,
but they apply to anything containing energy. For example, a gallon of
gasoline contains about 31,000,000 calories.
So if you
understand that calories give you the energy to move and the sustenance
to build our bodies lets get a closer look at what these calories really
are!
Take the calories from
21 Big Mac Hamburgers and convert them into energy you would have enough
energy to drive a small car approximately 80 miles! So you see foods
harbor a great deal of energy. Eating the right type of calories at the
right time and your body will respond by building lean muscle and
burning fat. Eat the wrong calories at the wrong time and you will lose
muscle and gain fat.
Most of us think of calories in relation
to food, as in "This can of soda has 200 calories." It turns out that
the calories on a food package are actually kilocalories (1,000 calories
= 1 kilocalorie). The word is sometimes capitalized to show the
difference, but usually not. A food calorie contains 4,184 joules. A can
of soda containing 200 food calories contains 200,000 regular calories,
or 200 kilocalories. A gallon of gasoline contains 31,000 kilocalories.
The same applies to exercise -- when a fitness chart says you burn
about 100 calories for every mile you jog, it means 100 kilocalories.
For the duration of this article, when we say "calorie," we mean
"kilocalorie."
What Calories Do
Caloric Breakdown
1 g Carbohydrates: 4 calories
1 g Protein: 4 calories
1 g Fat: 9 calories
1 g Alcohol: 7 calories
Human beings need energy to survive -- to breathe, move, pump blood -- and they acquire this energy from food.
The number of calories in a food is a measure of how much potential
energy that food possesses. A gram of carbohydrates has 4 calories, a
gram of protein has 4 calories, and a gram of fat has 9 calories. Foods
are a compilation of these three building blocks. So if you know how
many carbohydrates, fats and proteins are in any given food, you know
how many calories, or how much energy, that food contains.
If
we look at the nutritional label on the back of a packet of
maple-and-brown-sugar oatmeal, we find that it has 160 calories. This
means that if we were to pour this oatmeal into a dish, set the oatmeal
on fire and get it to burn completely (which is actually pretty tricky),
the reaction would produce 160 kilocalories (remember: food calories
are kilocalories) -- enough energy to raise the temperature of 160
kilograms of water 1 degree Celsius. If we look closer at the
nutritional label, we see that our oatmeal has 2 grams of fat, 4 grams
of protein and 32 grams of carbohydrates, producing a total of 162
calories (apparently, food manufacturers like to round down). Of these
162 calories, 18 come from fat (9 cal x 2 g), 16 come from protein (4
cal x 4 g) and 128 come from carbohydrates (4 cal x 32 g).
Our
bodies "burn" the calories in the oatmeal through metabolic processes,
by which enzymes break the carbohydrates into glucose and other sugars,
the fats into glycerol and fatty acids and the proteins into amino
acids. These molecules are then transported through the bloodstream to
the cells, where they are either absorbed for immediate use or sent on
to the final stage of metabolism in which they are reacted with oxygen
to release their stored energy.
The Basil Metabolic Rate (BMR)
Just how many calories do our cells need to function well? The number
is different for every person. You may notice on the nutritional labels
of the foods you buy that the "percent daily values" are based on a
2,000 calorie diet -- 2,000 calories is a rough average of what a person
needs to eat in a day, but your body might need more or less than 2,000
calories. Height, weight, gender, age and activity level all affect
your caloric needs. There are three main factors involved in calculating
how many calories your body needs per day:
1. Basal metabolic rate
2. Physical activity
3. Thermagenic effect of food
Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of energy your body needs
to function at rest. This accounts for about 60 to 70 percent of
calories burned in a day and includes the energy required to keep the
heart beating, the lungs breathing, the kidneys functioning and the body
temperature stabilized. In general, men have a higher BMR than women.
Your Caloric Needs
As you now know, there are three main factors involved in calculating
how many calories your body needs per day: your BMR, physical activity
and the thermagenic effect of food.
The second factor in the
equation, physical activity, consumes the next highest number of
calories. Physical activity includes everything from making your bed to
jogging. Walking, lifting, bending, and just generally moving around
burns calories, but the number of calories you burn in any given
activity depends on your body weight. Click here for a great table
listing the calories expended in various physical activities and for
various weights.
The thermic effect of food is the final
addition to the number of calories your body burns. This is the amount
of energy your body uses to digest the food you eat -- it takes energy
to break food down to its basic elements in order to be used by the
body.
Calories, Fat and Exercise
So what happens if
you take in more or fewer calories than your body burns? You either gain
or lose fat, respectively. An accumulation of 3,500 extra calories is
stored by your body as 1 pound of fat -- fat is the body's way of saving
energy for a rainy day. If, on the other hand, you burn 3,500 more
calories than you eat, whether by exercising more or eating less, your
body converts 1 pound of its stored fat into energy to make up for the
deficit.
One thing about exercise is that it raises your
metabolic rate not only while you're huffing and puffing on the
treadmill. Your metabolism takes a while to return to its normal pace.
It continues to function at a higher level; your body burns an increased
number of calories for about two hours after you've stopped exercising.
Lots of people wonder if it matters where their calories come from. At
its most basic, if we eat exactly the number of calories that we burn
and if we're only talking about weight, the answer is no -- a calorie is
a calorie. A protein calorie is no different from a fat calorie -- they
are simply units of energy. As long as you burn what you eat, you will
maintain your weight; and as long as you burn more than you eat, you'll
lose weight.
But if we're talking nutrition, it definitely
matters where those calories originate. Carbohydrates and proteins are
healthier sources of calories than fats. Although our bodies do need a
certain amount of fat to function properly -- an adequate supply of fat
allows your body to absorb the vitamins you ingest -- an excess of fat
can have serious health consequences. The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration recommends that a maximum of 30 percent of our daily
calories come from fat. So, if you eat 2,000 calories a day, that's a
maximum of 600 calories from fat, or 67 grams of fat, per day.
This is the base foundation for understanding calories and how calories
play an important role in nutrition. Just remember not to get caught-up
counting the calories as much and you look at the nutritional value of
the calories you choose to eat.
Magnesium is SO IMPORTANT!!!
Magnesium is an essential mineral used for hundreds of biochemical reactions, making it crucial for health. Massive magnesium deficiencies in the general population have led to a tidal wave of sudden coronary deaths, diabetes, strokes and cancer. Even a mild deficiency of magnesium can cause increased sensitivity to noise, nervousness, irritability, mental depression, confusion, twitching, trembling, apprehension, and insomnia.
The modern diet, with an overabundance of refined grains, processed foods and sugars, contains very little magnesium. Even the magnesium inside whole grains and fresh vegetables has been declining steadily in recent years because of depletion of minerals in our soils, making magnesium supplementation necessary for most people.
The benefits of using Magnesium Oil!
Magnesium deficiencies are present in healthy populations[1] thus it behooves every healthcare practitioner and doctor to become fully familiar with how to use magnesium oil, which is the best most versatile form of magnesium. When one floods the body with magnesium chloride, one can choose and combine multiple avenues of administration. One can take magnesium orally, transdermally on the skin through direct application or using it heavily in medicinal baths, and one can nebulize it directly into the lungs.
Magnesium can also be administered through. intramuscular injection or intravenously during surgery, heart attacks and stroke. There is no replacement in the pharmaceutical world for magnesium and in fact, most pharmaceuticals leave the patient more deficient thus needing even more magnesium. Practicing medicine without magnesium is not a good idea.
Magnesium oil is magnesium chloride and is one of the most powerful medicine/medicinals in the world. It is also the purest coming as it does from 1,500 meters underground Europe from a trapped seabed hundreds of millions years old. Surgery is certainly safer when magnesium is used before, during and after operations. Though the above magnesium oil product is sold primarily for transdermal use, it should be clear that it is the purest product that can be used for all applications.
Magnesium oil is oily but there is no oil—it is approximately 35 percent magnesium chloride. Oil is the right word though, not only because you can use it transdermally as a lubricant to transform simple massages into a medical treatment – for cancer and all other patients, but also because it acts as an oil for almost all physiological processes in the body. What oil does for an engine magnesium oil will do for your health.
Magnesium chloride is also an extremely versatile medicine. It can be used intravenously, nebulized directly into the lungs; it can be put directly on the skin, used orally as a laxative and orally for general intense use. There is nothing like getting a massage with magnesium oil and breast cancer or fibroid patients can apply it on their breasts many times a day for great effect.
Moreover, magnesium chloride in bath flake form (or Epson or Dead Sea Salt) can be used in baths with sodium bicarbonate for strong medicinal effect.
