CHAPTER 25

MUSCLE BALANCE AND IMBALANCE

The popular image of the ideal athlete immediately suggests big bulging muscles. This belief, or rather myth, implies that more muscle mass leads to better athleticism. This, of course, is not necessarily true, especially in endurance sports where power is not the key factor in long-distance training and racing.

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Your body’s muscles are, however, a vital part of overall fitness and health. Our muscles are the body’s largest organ, and they aren’t just for lifting, pushing, carrying, moving, or sprinting across the finish line. They are responsible for helping to pump blood through the body’s miles of blood vessels, for immune function, and for burning body fat.

There are three different kinds of muscle in our body, each with different functions:

 

 

 
  1. Smooth muscle makes up the walls of the arteries to control blood flow and surrounds the intestines from beginning to end to regulate the movement of food during digestion. These muscles are controlled to a great extent by the autonomic nervous system (sympathetic and parasympathetic function).
  2. Cardiac muscle is unique to the heart. While it’s influenced by the brain and nervous system, hormones, and stress, the heart also contains its own intrinsic mechanism allowing it to beat on its own.
  3. Skeletal muscle comprises the bulky muscular images we’re so familiar with in sports. Most muscles in humans are comprised of a variety of different fibers, primarily the aerobic and anaerobic types. While their basic movement is under conscious control from our brain (with many other actions taking place we’re not always aware of), we can also influence skeletal muscles significantly through training, diet, hormones, and therapies.

This chapter is a more in-depth discussion of skeletal muscles, how they function and what happens when they get out of balance. It’s important to note that muscles work because the brain and nervous system control them; as such, we should refer to a neuromuscular system, which includes the brain, spinal cord, nerves, and muscles.

In addition to their physical attributes, skeletal muscles influence many areas of metabolism, including fat stores, the liver, and the brain. Skeletal muscles also play a significant role in immune function because of their antioxidant capabilities; they are essentially home to much of our antioxidant protection, given a healthy diet. Muscles are even a major source of blood and lymph circulation. This occurs mostly in the red aerobic muscle fibers, which are well endowed with many miles of blood vessels.