The muscular system is one of the most important systems in our body. Muscles enable movement, and movement is life. On average, muscles in an adult body account for as much as 40% of its weight. Men have more muscles, while the body of women has more body fat. It makes pure evolutionary sense. Adipose tissue is burned, giving the woman the energy needed to maintain pregnancy, fertility and to give birth and feed a child. Men are characterized by greater strength because their ancestors were hunters.
What does a human muscle look like?
The muscular system is very well understood. Muscles are made of tendons and bellies, in which we find muscle fibers. They owe their red color, which we also see in the muscles of animals, to myoglobin.
What muscles do we distinguish?
Muscles can be divided into many different categories, based on their arrangement, size, structure, and function. We know, for example, muscles that contain only one belly – there are most of them in our body. However, there are also those that contain two bellies – for example, the biceps brachii. We also distinguish simple smooth muscles found, for example, in the stomach. They are designed to perform unconscious movements – contraction and expansion. The striated muscles have a greater function – they are responsible for movement.
Of course, the easiest way to distinguish the muscles is according to where they are located. In this way, we distinguish the muscles of the head and neck, the muscles of the abdomen, limbs and trunk, as well as the muscles of the chest and back muscles.
Antagonist muscles
Another distinction between muscles gives them the name extensors and flexors. When moving, one of them contracts more, the other less, as if relaxing. This is how the triceps and biceps muscles work, among others. We see the opposite effect in the case of synergistic muscles, which work identically and in the same direction. We find them, for example, in the muscles of the trunk.
Muscle strength
Muscle strength can generally be described as their ability to influence the environment by resisting at the expense of the physical effort they must incur. This phenomenon is accompanied by muscle contraction. Absolute muscular strength in sports and bodybuilding is called the maximum strength of a given person. Relative strength is also taken into account, i.e. the quotient of absolute muscle strength to the weight of a given person. Another important concept is how quickly muscle strength builds up – this is called the force gradient.
Muscle exercises and warm-up
Prolonged daily exercise of muscles can paradoxically reduce their overall strength. Muscle fatigue is a difficult topic in bodybuilding and in any sport that requires strength and endurance training. Exercises should therefore be repeated at certain intervals and in series – that is why special training plans are prepared especially for a given person. The efficiency of the human body, its current strength, the ability to regenerate muscle strength, weight, height, and health are taken into account. In addition, each exercise must be preceded by a proper warm-up. The warm-up should consist of a variety of simple exercises that help to warm up the muscles and make them more flexible. Only in this way can muscle strength, by performing appropriate exercises, be increased.