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fazdazzle
Wanderer


Registered: 02/17/05
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Biochemistry: Do muscles really tear when worked vigorously?
#14286534 - 04/13/11 08:41 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Today in biochem, we talked about muscles construction and contraction. I asked my prof afterwards what is meant when people say that you have to tear your muscles when working out to build them and he wasn't sure what that would imply. He did say that during vigorous exercise the filaments can disengage from one another completely....but how could that build muscle?
I did a quick look around pubmed but I couldn't find anything satisfying. I hope someone here knows, because I am really curious. If not I might have to hit up the physiology professor. The reason why I havn't gone to him/her yet is I want to know what's happening on the molecular level, which s/he definitely might not know.
Biochemistry rocks!
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
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Re: Biochemistry: Do muscles really tear when worked vigorously? [Re: fazdazzle]
#14288442 - 04/14/11 04:31 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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My education in biology is fairly limited. However, I do a lot of training for endurance sports (triathlons and marathons), so this is a topic that interests me. I also eat lunch with a "Doctor Doctor" (md/phd) that teaches physiology, and we have discussed the topic quite a bit. Unfortunately, what little I remember may not be accurate and is at the laymen level, not the expert level. (Most of what we have discussed has been energy production and metabolism...)
My simplistic understanding is that when we do repetitive exercise, we stress the muscles. The stress causes actual tears in the muscle fibers. Basically, some of the cells bursts, leaving small holes in the actual muscle. In the extreme, this is known as rhabdomyolysis.
When the above happens, the body responds as it would to any injury and swelling (myositis) results along with a feeling of pain. The damaged cells also cause an increase in enzyme levels (creatine phosphokinase / CPK) which can be detected in the blood. Excess CPK is very hard on the kidneys, and can lead to kidney damage, especially if dehydrated, which is one reason why you want to stay hydrated while exercising.
As the body heals from the torn muscle fiber, new muscle cells are grown. However, more new cells are grown than damaged cells that are being replaced. This causes the muscle to grow in size, and strength. Rest days in a training program are important to allow the body time to grow new muscle and to recover slightly from the muscle damage caused by training.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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ChuangTzu
starvingphysicist



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Re: Biochemistry: Do muscles really tear when worked vigorously? [Re: Seuss]
#14289906 - 04/14/11 12:47 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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What Seuss said sounds about right. I'm also not too clear on the details of that though. One thing that I do know is that if you overstress a particular muscular bundle, you can snap the whole thing. And if that happens, that bundle is gone forever and won't heal/reattach.
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Stopwhispering
The voodoo peoples




Registered: 05/01/10
Posts: 4,390
Loc: Melbourne
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Re: Biochemistry: Do muscles really tear when worked vigorously? [Re: ChuangTzu]
#14365387 - 04/28/11 06:36 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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If you want a more visual simplistic example, interlock your fingers then slide them apart so that they are still interlocked but there are gaps, this is effectively what happens to your muscle fibres when you excersise, the body then begins to "fill in" those gaps in it's repair process resulting in the overall size of that muscle to increse. Overexercising or not allowing enough time for repair is generally when damage can occur as there is a physical limit to how far apart these fibers can be seperated.
This is my basic understanding of it, I am drawing off information that was tought to me a hell of a long time ago though.
Edited by Stopwhispering (04/28/11 07:10 AM)
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Stopwhispering
The voodoo peoples




Registered: 05/01/10
Posts: 4,390
Loc: Melbourne
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Re: Biochemistry: Do muscles really tear when worked vigorously? [Re: Stopwhispering]
#14365552 - 04/28/11 07:32 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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This had some decent information in it http://www.biology-online.org/9/10_muscle.htm, I think you may have sparked my curiosity to learn about what happens during the regeneration of muscles.
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5HTSynaptrip
Dopamine Enthusiast



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Re: Biochemistry: Do muscles really tear when worked vigorously? [Re: Stopwhispering]
#14381881 - 05/01/11 09:58 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Androgen receptors play a huge role in muscle mass increase. This is the main reason anabolic steroids are so effective. In fact, the behavior of anabolic steroids is quite diverse. They are characterized by how anabolic and androgenic they are. Testosterone obviously is a major endogenous androgen receptor ligand. If you block androgen receptors, muscles will not grow in response to exercise nearly as well. The mechanisms behind anabolic steroids are pretty incredible and they induce a lot of gene transcription which really get proteins pumping inside cells.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7957162
This is another really good article discussing a mechanism in regards to "tearing." The sarcomere may split and form two separate sarcomeres.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/719413_3
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Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. - My hero, who will be forever remembered, Carl Sagan.
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