Sports medicine & Kinesiology

Why do our muscles ache after a workout?

The Paris 2024 Olympics have inspired you to take up running again this year. Your shoes are all laced up, your headphones plugged in, and you're off. 15 kilometers later, with no cramps or stitches to report, you're home. ...

Sports medicine & Kinesiology

How tapering maximizes your potential on marathon day

The taper is an essential aspect of training that many new runners need to remember to incorporate into their training program. Tapering means reducing your training load before a competition to optimize performance on race ...

Muscle

Muscle (from Latin musculus, diminutive of mus "mouse") is the contractile tissue of the body and is derived from the mesodermal layer of embryonic germ cells. Muscle cells contain contractile filaments that move past each other and change the size of the cell. They are classified as skeletal, cardiac, or smooth muscles. Their function is to produce force and cause motion. Muscles can cause either locomotion of the organism itself or movement of internal organs. Cardiac and smooth muscle contraction occurs without conscious thought and is necessary for survival. Examples are the contraction of the heart and peristalsis which pushes food through the digestive system. Voluntary contraction of the skeletal muscles is used to move the body and can be finely controlled. Examples are movements of the eye, or gross movements like the quadriceps muscle of the thigh. There are two broad types of voluntary muscle fibers: slow twitch and fast twitch. Slow twitch fibers contract for long periods of time but with little force while fast twitch fibers contract quickly and powerfully but fatigue very rapidly.

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