Muscle Fatigue

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Muscle contractions in our bodies are what allow us to move and produce heat, but what exactly is a muscle contraction? Well, a muscle contraction is a process in which tension develops in the muscle tissue. In a skeletal muscle, sarcomeres are the units of contraction and are made up of thick, myosin filaments and thin, actin filaments.The sarcoplasmic reticulum, a network of tubes, runs parallel to the filaments. Sarcomeres are also found in the myofibrils, the contracting fibers of a myofiber, a muscle cell. This muscle cell is then surrounded by a membrane known as the sarcolemma. Several myofibers are wrapped around by the endomysium and bundle up together to create a fascicle. The perimysium wraps around each of the fascicles and the …show more content…
The majority of the “fatigue” we experience is actually mental. One of the reasons muscle fatigue occurs is due to the decrease of ions such as calcium, a decrease in substrates like ATP, or the build up of agonistic metabolites. Agonistic metabolites are the substances that result from metabolic reactions and that are responsible for physiological responses when they merge with a receptor. Lactic acid is an example of an agonistic metabolite. Substrates - like ATP, glycogen, and creatine phosphate - are usually responsible for powering muscle contractions. ATP binds to the myosin head during the 8th step of the sliding filament theory, creatine phosphate is responsible for storing energy so that ATP can be rapidly regenerated (this causes powerful contractions that last a couple of seconds), and glycogen is used to quickly generate energy when creatine stores are no longer able to. Substrates cause muscle fatigue when they are used up during exercise. The decrease of substrates leaves the muscles with no energy source to be able to contract. Metabolites, on the other hand, are waste products that result from muscle contractions, such as magnesium and ADP. These metabolites cause muscle fatigue when they begin to accumulate in the muscle fibers. The accumulation of the waste products can block the release of calcium from the SR, causing
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