I have been loving my summer anatomy class, the human body is just so freaking cool!
I know this is going to be a nerd post, but I just wanted to share some information from my class.
Ever wonder why some people have a long and lean body while others look like a stumpy bag of muscles?
Well believe it or not it has something to do with what is going on INSIDE of our bodies!
ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) is the chemical compound in our body that contains energy. We have 2 different ways to make ATP, anaerobic respiration and aerobic respiration.
[Source]
Anaerobic respiration for “on and off training”= NO oxygen is needed to produce ATP.
Aerobic respiration for prolonged and low impact activity= Oxygen IS needed to produce ATP.
The cells of our body that depend on the various types of respiration also look and function differently.
Everyone’s muscles have a various mixture of muscle fibers and are different from person to person. (This is why even if you work out just as much as someone else your body will never “look” the same.)
[Source]
Resistance training that requires anaerobic respiration for the short burst of activity increases the size of the muscle fibers= a bulkier look.
High endurance activities (running a marathon) which require aerobic respiration contain muscle fibers that are thinner in diameter to allow for a faster diffusion of oxygen from blood=long and lean look.
All of our muscles contain a mixture of the muscle fibers and most of them determined genetically.
Sorry if I lost anyone with this post, but this stuff is so freaking cool! You can basically design your dream body, just do the right type of exercise that change the shape of your muscle fibers.
Did I lose anyone with this post? Or are you fascinated with the science of exercise?
Cool! I would love to take classes and learn all this.
You should! I am taking classes at my local community college to hopefully get a degree in exercise science on top of teaching group fitness!
The human body is awesome!
You’re right to a certain point. You can work one set of muscle fibers over the other and get different results. However, genetics determine how many Type I vs Type II fibers you have. If you have a greater percentage of type I fibers, you can certainly lift weights to build up your type II fibers and get stronger & more muscley, but you’ll probably never be a champion power lifter or body builder. Be careful to not aspire to a body type or that might be unattainable because of mother nature.
Yep genetics plays a huge role!
That actually is really interesting. I usually am not crazy about science, but I get into it when it relates to exercise lol
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