Muscle Fiber Research Paper

Words: 856
Pages: 4

When the body is in motion, it responds to activity through the activation of its muscles, whose microstructure is composed of a group of motor units separated from different groups of motor units; motor units themselves consist of a single neuron and all the fibers of muscles moderated by it which in turn are composed of myofibrils, a bundle of myofilaments which are the elements of muscle that shorten upon contraction. During strength training, the human body must learn to overcome the gravitational and inertial forces imposed on the body externally by generating enough force internally. Muscle fiber alignment has a distinct role in the body’s ability to produce force; when the fibers are parallel to tendons, contraction can occur at great …show more content…
Myofibrils contract through the actin and myosin filaments sliding over each other thus causing chemical bonds and receptor sites within the myofilaments to pull toward each other; this allows muscle contraction to be held until fatigue interferes and is known as the Sliding Filament Theory. Muscle fibers have different liability to recruitment depending on the action recruited for, with Type I fibers being of the highest liability and the first to be recruited, Type IIa and IIc, a result of IIx fibers fusing with satellite cells, being of moderate, and Type IIx having a low liability; muscle fibers with moderate to low liability become recruited last, however, when training with during a one rep max, although the movement may be slow you will still be recruiting both fast and slow twitch fibers to move the heavy weights as you begin to use more than 25% of your maximum strength. This neuromuscular activity is known as the Henneman Principle, aka, The Size Principle of Fiber Recruitment. Due to muscle fiber (including its myofibrils) and all motor units of which it is apart of respond to nerve stimuli with an all-or-none reaction, not all motor units composing a muscle may be activated at a given time. A motor unit is either completely relaxed or contracted, as that is all a myofibrils knows -