To understand the musculature
All movements of the human body are based on muscle power. The muscles are connected to the bones at one or more points by tendons and ligaments, thus enabling the skeleton to move in a similar way to a puppet.
- Here you will find detailed information about the frontal musculature
- Here you will find detailed information about the back musculature
The human skeletal muscle consists of bundles of muscle fibers, these bundles of individual muscle fibers and these bundles of so-called myofibrils.
The myofibrils in turn consist of individual sarcomeres strung together. 2000 successive sarcomeres result in approx. 1 mm.
The human upper arm muscle thus consists of approximately 10,000,000,000 sarcomeres. These in turn consist of two molecules, actin and myosin. This absolutely regular structure can be seen under the microscope.
For this reason, the muscle is also called striated muscle. Schematically shown in a highly simplified form: During a muscle contraction, the myosin and actin combine. Due to the structure of the myosin, the actin and myosin shift by approx.
0.0000001 mm. However, since several billion actin and myosin molecules are present in a muscle, this shift (shortening) is visible. The muscle contracts.
- Z-Strips
- Actin filament
- Myosin filament
If you compare the distance between the Z-stripes you can see the contraction. ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) is crucial for muscle contractions, be it in strength training, endurance training or speed training.The ATP is, so to speak, a fuel that makes human movement possible in the first place. The higher the load, the faster the muscle needs this ATP.
The human body has three options for strength training.
- If the load is very high, a lot of ATP must be “produced” very quickly (1- 4. max. 10 repetitions during an exercise).
The body makes use of its creatine phosphate (KrP) storage. This occurs, for example, during strength training with the highest loads. However, this storage is only very limited, i.e. after approx.
7 seconds the KrP is used up. However, regular training at high intensities allows the body to adapt and increase its KrP storage.
- If the load is not maximum (approx. 10 – 35 repetitions), the ATP is mainly obtained by converting sugar (glucose). This causes the muscle to overacidify, which leads to an unpleasant sensation.
- At lower strength levels (> 50 Wdh.) ATP is also extracted from the sugar, but the muscle does not become overacidified.
