Less Me  

My Routine:

(soon you’ll be able to click on each listing and go to that routine)

Chest

Legs

Spine / Abs

Shoulders

Biceps

Triceps

Back

Cardio

I will be using a very non-scientific theory for the basis of my weight-training.  I was watching 2 construction workers on a roof the other day.  They both had their shirts off, so I was able to effectively analyse their muscles working under load visually.  This got me thinking.  Contruction workers have the exact type of muscles I would want to have.  They tend to be long, strong and not very large.  Typically, their work requires them to do excessively repetitious movements under load.  They do not rest the muscles on the in-between days.  This causes very slender, strong fibers to be built.  I like that.

I typed up a bunch of scientific information so you can see I researched both avenues of thought before making my decision.  I will be focusing on low-weight, high repetition done slowly and smoothly to enhance both concentric and eccentric contractions.

Over the short-term, strength training involving both eccentric and concentric contractions appear to increase muscular strength more than training with concentric contractions alone.

There are three general types of muscle tissues:

1.  Skeletal muscle responsible for movement

2.  Cardiac muscle responsible for pumping blood

3.  Smooth muscle responsible for sustained contractions in the blood vessels, gastrointestinal tract, and other areas in the body.

For voluntary muscles, contraction occurs as a result of conscious effort originating in the brain. The brain sends signals through the nervous system to the motor neuron that innervates several muscle fibers. The signal to contract can originate in the spinal cord through a feedback loop with the grey matter, as in reflex contractions.

Involuntary muscles such as the heart or smooth muscles in the gut and vascular system contract as a result of non-conscious brain activity or stimuli endogenous to the muscle itself.

Other actions such as locomotion, breathing and chewing have a reflex aspect to them: the contractions can be initiated consciously or unconsciously.

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Concentric contraction

A concentric contraction is a type of muscle contraction in which the muscles shorten while generating force.  During a concentric contraction, a muscle is stimulated to contract according to the sliding filament mechanism.

An example of this would be a concentric contraction of the biceps that would cause the arm to bend at the elbow and hand to move from near to the leg, to close to the shoulder, as in a bicep curl.

Eccentric contraction

During an eccentric contraction, the muscle elongates while under tension due to an opposing force being greater than the force generated by the muscle.  During an eccentric contraction, the filaments slide past each other the opposite way.

An example of this would be during an eccentric contraction of the biceps muscle where the elbow starts the movement while bent and then straightens as the hand moves away from the shoulder.

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Energy needed to perform short lasting, high intensity bursts of activity is derived from anaerobic sources within the cytosol of muscle cells, as opposed to aerobic respiration which utilizes oxygen, is sustainable, and occurs in the mitochondria. The quick energy sources consist of the phosphocreatine (PCr) system, fast glycolysis, and adenylate kinase.

Plasma glucose is maintained by an equal rate of glucose appearance (entry into the blood) and glucose disposal (removal from the blood). In the healthy individual, rate of appearance and disposal are essentially equal during exercise of moderate intensity and duration; however, prolonged exercise or sufficiently intense exercise can result in an imbalance leaning towards a higher rate of disposal than appearance, at which point glucose levels fall along with the onset of fatigue.

glucose control: As mentioned above, insulin secretion is reduced during exercise, and does not play a major role in euglycemia during exercise. Insulin’s countergegulatory hormones, however, appear in increasing concentrations during exercise. In adults, exercise depletes the plasma glucose available to the brain: short intense exercise (35 min ergometer cycling) can reduce brain glucose uptake by 32%.