Highlights:
- different ways your muscles get stronger
- evidence for how exercise, nutrition, and activity change your muscles
- learn what you can do today to increase strength, burn more calories and feel stronger
A friend, Samantha, recently asked me what the difference is between a weak and strong person's muscles. I think it's a neat question. Especially because of how dynamic the answer may be. An initial guess is that you add more muscle tissue--and this is correct, but there's so much more! When we discover the ways muscles strengthen, we can learn how to maximize our power and health.
Muscle action explained in 30 seconds...go!
Muscles on a functional level are made of overlapping protein fibers (eg actin & myosin). When a nerve signal fires, the muscle tissue is flooded with a watery bath of ions (kind of like gatorade :) which causes the protein fibers to play a game of tug-of-war. The winner is you--and your now contracted muscles. And scene!
An increase in the number of the protein filaments (myofibrillar hypertrophy) is not always shown in thickness or bulk of the individual. This is what I call "dad strength", where my father was always lean yet could battle 2 growing boys with ease. This is also encouraging to women who are looking to add strength or calorie-burning potential without adding significant bulk.
You can add strength, especially endurance without any physical change to the number or size of muscle fibers. Through good nutrition and exercise, you may increase the power plants in your cells that provide muscles with energy to work. The more often you work your muscles, the more you're telling your body to make little energy factories (mitochondria, for you biology buffs). This is like putting a bigger gas tank on your car. You also need calcium to fire muscles, which is a great reason to support healthy bones & muscles with a supplement.
The most significant part: Strength gains in the first 5 weeks of exercise is nerve based. Let me say that another way: if you change your exercise program, and start to notice strength gains, the physical physiology of your muscles has changed very little--it takes longer for your body to grow and repair those muscles--what is happening is your brain and nerves are learning how to better coordinate recruitment and firing of muscles. We could talk all day about this. This is where the fun of treatment really begins. When I treat the brain and nerves, I can often change the strength and function of muscles immediately!
Muscle growth, power plant improvement, neurologic development...we haven't even gotten to how we use biomechanical joint advantage (leverage) to add strength. How do your muscles get stronger? One part physiology (muscle fiber & mitochondria increase), 1 part neurology (brain and nerve control), and 1 part biomechanics (leverage & joint proprioception).
Now, If you're looking to strengthen your muscle, you have so many options!
- begin with regular hydration and healthy protein sources (building blocks)
- add activity based in real-life movements (functional training). eg. walking, swimming, playing with children, gardening
- exercise regularly and with intensity to challenge your body to need more strength (5 x 40 min/week)
- continue diet & exercise changes for more than 5 weeks to see physical changes
- seek knowledgeable therapists and physicians who encourage you to move for enjoyment!
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