1.2 - Muscle Composition (Stretching)
Description
This article is from the Stretching FAQ, by Brad Appleton Brad_Appleton@ivhs.mot.com with numerous contributions by others.
1.2 - Muscle Composition (Stretching)
Muscles vary in shape and in size, and serve many different purposes. Most
large muscles, like the hamstrings and quadriceps, control motion. Other
muscles, like the heart, and the muscles of the inner ear, perform other
functions. At the microscopic level however, all muscles share the same
basic structure.
At the highest level, the (whole) muscle is composed of many strands of
tissue called "fascicles". These are the strands of muscle that we see when
we cut red meat or poultry. Each fascicle is composed of "fasciculi" which
are bundles of "muscle fibers". The muscle fibers are in turn composed of
tens of thousands of thread-like "myofybrils", which can contract, relax,
and elongate (lengthen). The myofybrils are (in turn) composed of up to
millions of bands laid end-to-end called "sarcomeres". Each sarcomere is
made of overlapping thick and thin filaments called "myofilaments". The
thick and thin myofilaments are made up of "contractile proteins",
primarily actin and myosin.
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