Weight Lifting Exercises & Their Affect On Different Muscle Fibers

Weight Lifting Exercises & Their Affect On Different Muscle Fibers
By Patrick Mckeeman

Weight lifting exercises cause your muscles to generate heat and strength. Your muscles need to be strong, in order to help you move, breathe and so on.

This article on weight lifting exercises will look at the relationship between the exercises you use when weight lifting and your muscles.

Your actual muscle tissue is made up of 2 types of muscle fibers, actin, which are a slim fiber and myosin which are substantially thicker. Both of these fiber types help to give your muscles a striated look about them.

When performing any exercises used in weight lifting the muscle being exercised must be able to contract properly. To do this they need to become stimulated by motor neurons. These are simply nerves.

One motor neuron and the muscle fibers stimulated during exercises used during weight lifting activities are called a motor unit. These motor units or muscle fibers play a large part in the force your muscles can produce during a contraction.

The more motor units you can activate during your weight lifting exercises the stronger the contraction. Meaning you'll be able to lift a greater amount of weight for an increased number of repetitions.

Your muscle fibers are categorized as Type I, Type IIa and Type IIb muscle fibers. The more common term for muscle fibers are fast and slow twitch.

When performing high rep weight training exercises it's your slow twitch muscle fibers (Type I) that will be recruited to do the majority of the work. Your body uses this type of muscle fiber when endurance activities, aerobic activity or high rep sets are used.

Fast twitch muscle fibers (Type IIa and Type Iib) are used by your body during explosive contractions. It's these fibers that have the greatest potential for growth resulting from the weight lifting exercises you perform.

Your body will used fast twitch muscle fibers during high-intensity, short-duration exercises such as weight lifting exercises that use heavy weight for very low reps, or sprinting.

People who seem to be able to build muscle at will when performing almost any weight lifting exercises, usually will have an unusually large number of fast twitch muscle fibers in their body.

In the majority of people the muscle fiber make-up in each muscle group will be relatively equal in most muscle groups. Therefore you need to recruit both slow twitch and fast twitch fibers at some point in your exercise program.

One exception to the rule of equal types of muscle fibers is when it comes to your hamstrings. The hamstring muscles in the vast majority of people tend to be made up of mostly fast twitch muscle fibers.

For that reason, when performing weight exercises for your hamstrings, you should try to use heavier weights for a lower number of reps.

Now, when executing any weight training exercises your muscles will go through a few different actions. There are isometric, eccentric, concentric, and isotonic portions of most weight lifting exercises;

Isometric contractions can best be described as the same stress your muscle would go through when pushing against a wall.

The lifting portion of weight training exercises such as a dumbbell bicep curl is known as the concentric contraction. Lowering the dumbbell in a controlled fashion is the eccentric portion.

The more common terms for this part of weight training exercises are positive (concentric) and negative (eccentric).

The fourth type of contraction that can occur during weight exercises is the isotonic contraction. This can occur more commonly during plyometric training.

Patrick Mckeeman has very quick, easy & effective health & fitness solutions for you. For extensive information on weight lifting exercises please go to: http://www.man-health-fitness-solutions.com/weight-lifting-exercises.html

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Which Is Better For Building Muscle: Machines Or Free Weights?

Which Is Better For Building Muscle: Machines Or Free Weights?
By Shawn LeBrun

Want to know the Million Dollar question I get asked probably more than any other?

Which is better for building muscle: Machines or Free Weights?

Well, first of all, overloading the muscle with heavy weight -- whatever the type of equipment you use -- is what promotes muscle growth. Any exercise that limits overload is not a good choice.

However, in most cases, it's much more effective, and more efficient, to overload the muscle with dumbbells and barbells.

Most machines are very inefficient and not nearly as effective at muscle stimulation as free weight compound exercises. That's because they limit the amount of overload you can achieve. Less overload... less muscle fiber recruitment and less muscle growth as a result.

Sticking with basic free weight exercises enables you to handle maximum overload and use natural biomechanics as you perform the movements. Machines restrict your natural movements, again, making them less effective for building muscle.

Now, if I had to use a machine for resistance training, it'd probably be Hammer Strength machines. Hammer Strength is a company that recognizes that humans do not lift weights in a perfectly straight line. The range of motion of Hammer Strength equipment generally follows the natural arc of our own force curve.

And the thing is, you can probably lift more weight on Hammer Strength equipment than a free weight barbell. And it makes sense why. The machines help you out by balancing and stabilizing the majority of the weight for you. This makes it easier to lift more weight. But it's not an advantage. Muscle fiber recruitment will always be less than if a free weight were used.

Even though the absolute poundage is greater on a machine, the actual overload on the muscle is greater with free weights because you're responsible for balancing and stabilizing all the weight yourself. This, along with an increased range of motion, is why free weights are better for more muscle fiber recruitment and maximum stimulation.

Bottom line, good old-fashioned free weights are the number one selection for building muscle!

Shawn Lebrun is an online personal trainer and natural bodybuilder. If you're looking to pack on more muscle massand get a lean, tight physique, check out my Simple Steps To Get Huge And Shredded program.

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Muscles and Protein: How Much Do You Need?

Muscles and Protein: How Much Do You Need?
By Gabe Mirkin, M.D.

Many body builders and weight lifters are overly concerned about what they eat and what food supplements they take. If you want to grow larger and stronger muscles, you should concentrate on lifting weights, but you can help muscles grow larger by understanding how what you eat affects how you recover from hard exercise.

Just exercising will not make you strong and it will not help you to grow large muscles. If exercise made you strong, marathon runners would have the largest muscles. The only stimulus to make muscles larger and stronger is to stretch them while they contract. When you lift a heavy weight, your muscles start to stretch before they start to contract. This tears the muscle and causes soreness on the next day and beyond. If you rest and let the muscle heal, it will be stronger than before you stretched it lifting weights.

This training principle of stress-and-recover is so strong that you can enlarge a muscle by lifting weights even if you are fasting, losing weight and all your other muscles are getting smaller. In one study, obese, un-athletic women were instructed to restrict food and lift weights. They averaged a weight loss of more than 35 pounds in three months and gained a lot of muscle.

Training for sports is done by taking a hard workout and then having sore muscles on the next day. Then you take easy workouts or you take off until the muscle soreness disappears. You improve by taking hard workouts and your muscles grow and heal while you recover on your easy days. Of course, if you could recover faster from a hard workout, you could do more work and be a better athlete. Scientists have known for years that you recover faster by eating carbohydrates immediately after you finish your hard workout. Other studies show that eating extra protein on the day that you take hard workouts helps you recover even faster. Eating extra protein reduces muscle damage during hard exercise. Eating carbohydrates along with a protein building block called leucine helps you to recover even faster.

Chronic muscle fatigue in athletes is associated with low blood levels of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. The sooner you eat protein after you finish your hard workout, the quicker you will recover. The benefits of eating protein soon after you lift weights does not apply just to elite athletes. A study from the University of Arkansas shows that eating meat helps older people grow large muscles when they also lift weights. Muscles are made primarily from protein building blocks called amino acids. Muscles heal from a hard workout when amino acids and other nutrients travel from your bloodstream into the muscles. Eating food, particularly protein, immediately after you finish your workout helps muscles heal faster. This study shows that men between the ages of 51 and 69 recover faster and grow larger muscles when they include meat than when they eat only dairy, fruits, vegetable, whole grains, beans, seeds and nuts.

Most foods contain protein. Your stomach acids and enzymes in the stomach and intestines break down proteins into their building blocks, amino acids, which pass from the intestine into the bloodstream. If your body needs to build protein, your liver combines amino acids to form body proteins. Your body has no way to store extra protein. If you don't need all of the protein you have eaten, it is broken down into organic acids and ammonia, which can be used for energy or stored as fat.

For journal references on the studies mentioned in this article see http://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/1181.html

Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties, including sports medicine. Read or listen to hundreds of his fitness and health reports at http://www.DrMirkin.com

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