What is a muscle contraction?
Muscle contraction occurs a hundred times in a row during sport - but what is the physiological process and what happens during it?
How is the skeletal muscle built?
- in the body There are three types of muscles: the striated muscle, the smooth muscle, and the heart muscle. The skeletal muscles that move the musculoskeletal system and can be contracted at will are striated. The smooth muscles move the GastrointestinalTract, the respiratory tract, the urogenital tract and much more. The smooth muscles cannot be moved arbitrarily and, like the heart muscle, have a slightly different structure than the skeletal muscles that are trained in sport.
- Each muscle is made up of many small fibrils that, when put together, form the muscle. Each muscle fiber in turn consists of several sarcomeres, in which the molecules for muscle contraction are located.
- In each contractile unit there are actin filaments and myosin filaments. Several actin filaments are arranged around each myosin filament. The filaments are anchored to larger proteins.
- The filaments consist of different proteins. This is why the muscle is so rich in protein and it is important to consume plenty of protein while exercising.
How does the muscle contraction work?
- During muscle contraction, the actin filaments push themselves between the myosin filaments. This shortens the fibrils and the entire muscle.
- First of all, ATP, the universal energy carrier in the body, is deposited on the myosin filaments. This detaches them from the actin filaments so that they can move between them.
- After that, ATP is split. The released energy causes the myosin filaments to tilt outwards. The myosin and actin filaments then reconnect.
- While part of the split ATP is released, the myosin filaments move towards the center and push themselves between the actin filaments.
- After such a contraction cycle, myosin and actin remain connected. During normal muscle contraction, this process takes place hundreds of times so that the whole muscle also contracts.
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