Muscles, everybody loves muscles — including myself and I’m trying really hard not to turn this into an open love letter for my favorite system of the body — but do you ever wonder about what muscles actually do or how they work? What is the process by which you activate your muscles and move weights or beat up villains or create works of art? Yes, muscles do more than just look good. Muscles do all sorts of things and all of them involve producing forces-. So, let’s look at how our muscles contract and create forces upon our limbs when we want to initiate movement.
It should be no surprise when I tell you that the command to move your muscles comes from the brain. Different areas of the brain are devoted to moving different parts of the body. Scientists Wilder Penfield and Edwin Boldrey made this important discovery through surveying the human motor cortex ( i.e. electrically stimulating cells in particular parts of the brain and observing which muscles were activated). From their work they came up with a map of the surface of the motor areas of the brain that went with the muscles of the body. The shape this map took came to be known as a Homunculus or “little man map” Look at how the large the area of the map is for controlling your fingers, thumbs, and hands. This is a stark contrast to the area dedicated to everything below the jaw and speaks to the amount of control we have as humans for precision control of our fingers and vocalization.
So, how does this process of movement work? Well, first you decide to do something. It could be a box jump or handstand push-up or picking up a spoon. Upon making that decision, a relayed command arrives at the primary motor cortex, which relays that message to activate muscle down into the spinal cord. The cells that transmit these messages are motoneurons which run down your spine and connect with the muscle cells that will produce movement when activated. The pairing of a motoneuron and the muscle cells (fibers) it innervates is the basic functional unit of movement control and is called a “motor unit”. When the electrical signal to contract is received by the motor unit and it arrives at the synapse between the motoneuron and the muscle fibers – called the neuromuscular junction — it changes to a chemical signal. This chemical is a neurotransmitter called Acetylcholine (ACH) that leads to the depolarization of the muscle fibers. The signal becomes electric again and will trigger the release of calcium ions that are directly involved in balancing the process of muscle contraction.
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Editors note: It’s been a while since we ran the first Becoming Batman, you might want to give that a read before working your way through this one.
Stress, Stress, Stress. Fighting crime, saving lives, replacing sidekicks. Can you imagine the amount of stress that Batman is constantly under? As CrossFitters I know you can. Think about it: how many times have you walked into your gym and bee-lined it to the WOD board while thinking something akin to “please don’t be Fran, please don’t be Fran!” Or maybe that sweaty palmed, butterflies-in-your-stomach, all-of-a-sudden I have to use the bathroom feeling you get as your coach calmly says “3,2,1 go” is more familiar? Now I have your attention don’t I? Well don’t fret, it’s ok, I’m here to tell you that stress is a very necessary element of life for all species and without it you would never grow, period.
The word “stress” has roots in the Latin verb stringere, which means to draw tight, strain, exert, or tax. Stress is everywhere in society (some forms being worse than others) especially in this day and age and we all have our own ways of coping with it. The type of stress that we are particularly interested in right now is the kind we subject our bodies to as we strive to become superhero fit. The big issue being that having a functioning human body is a tricky business. Your body (just like Batman’s) is made up of an enormous number of cells. Actually, one billion cells per gram of tissue. This translates into 100 trillion cells as an adult and all of these cells have their own internal environment. When all of these cells are functioning properly your body is in a state of homeostasis.
Whenever your body is pushed out of this comfortable operating range, it answers with the “fight or flight” response. Which is a hormonal reaction to the extreme stresses which have challenged homeostasis. After Fight or flight, adaptation occurs, and there is an adjustment and resistance to the stressor. This concept is called “General Adaptation Syndrome” or GAS for short. Basically this concept embodies the state of an organism in relation to adapting and responding to its environment. As long as things are intact and working within their parameters, the body returns to normal and is healthy. However, if the body is not returned back to a state of homeostasis, disease and death may follow.
Now, we typically associate stress with negativity. Yet, physiologically speaking, without stress there would be no adaptation at all, no function, and life as we know it would simply cease to exist! Within a certain range, stress is needed as a stimulus for all biological activity. This simple statement is the cornerstone for most of our understanding about how the body adapts to exercise. The opposite is also true: removing stress can yield adaptation in the opposite direction to those that occurred in the presence of the stress. Hence, the reason why you get stronger, faster, and more muscular when you workout (everyone at CrossFit Costa Mesa) and become weak and soft (globo gym members) when you don’t.
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As a young boy growing up I was always fond of comic books and superheroes. My imagination would run wild as I went on adventures with Superman, Spiderman, Batman and countless others. Yet only one of those heroes has been able to captivate and inspire me to this very day, and that hero is Batman.
Why Batman? Simple, he’s human. He wasn’t bit by a radioactive spider that gave him arachnid-like abilities, he was not gifted with alien powers that allowed him to fly or shot-put a 747. No, Batman is an ordinary (albeit wealthy) human being that does the extraordinary day-in and day-out. Batman forged himself through years of hard work, training and will power (especially willpower) effectively representing the pinnacle of human physical achievement. So does that mean that you or I are capable of reaching these heights? Possibly, let’s look a little deeper into what actually makes Batman, The Batman.
Part 1: Genetics
As a trainer and a coach I have always heard clients/random people around the gym make some remark akin to “ I can’t get that lean/strong/big it’s just not part of my genetics.” Well how big of a role do genetics actually play in your quest to become the Dark Knight? The answer may surprise you.
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