Muscle Fatigue
Fatigue of the muscles entails the reduction in power to conduct any other activity on the body (Place et al., 2010). This is mostly caused a prolonged or muscle activities that tend to take for a longer period. On their research, Place et al., (2010) indicated that prolonged exercise plays a crucial role in minimizing fatigue on the muscles. Prolonged exercises tend to minimize the fatigue compared to voluntary contraction that an individual may force on the muscles.
The study behind this fact is the fact that all mechanisms located beyond the sarcolemna plays a significant and crucial role in minimizing fatigue (Place et al., 2010). However, this process tends to be effective during prolonged exercises. There are various reasons that tend to influence muscle fatigue during the occurrence of various activities.
Some of these reasons include the oxygen transport activity in the muscles. The oxygen is mostly transported to various metabolic substrates that are available in the muscles. Another significant factor that tends to influence muscle fatigue is the motor command from the brain (Place et al., 2010). The motor command tends to direct the brain to control the contractile protein interaction in the muscles hence causing fatigue (Place et al., (2010)). Moreover, various psychological conditions that tend to be affected in the brain cause the occurrence of fatigue in the muscles.
The psychological conditions are of significant importance as they influence various changes that occur in the muscles. For example, the psychological conditions play a crucial role in acute changes in the contractile function especially when individuals tend to engage in various prolonged exercises. Two types of fatigues occur after the induction of the human mind when they undertake prolonged exercises. One of these types is known as the central fatigue while the other one is known as the peripheral fatigue. The central fatigue occurs in a situation where there is an occurrence of changes located prior to the neuromuscular junction (Place et al., 2010).
This changes leads to the occurrence of fatigue in the muscles. Peripheral or muscular fatigue occurs when the changes occurs beyond the neuromuscular junction. This means that the changes occur especially beyond the interpolation techniques in humans. In both cases, the prolonged exercise that tends to be distinguished into two areas occurs. One of the areas that the prolonged exercises are distinguished is those that are sustained after contractions that occur during voluntarily exhaustion. Most of the voluntary exhaustion focuses on a particular muscle group in the human body. Moreover, the voluntary exhaustion is performed under isometric conditions (Place et al., 2010). The other type of prolonged fatigued occurs after an individual experiences certain global exercises. Some of the global exercises include cycling, running and skiing. On these exercises, large muscle mass is involved. Another significant aspect of these exercises is that they are performed under various dynamic conditions.
All of the above-explained two types of exercises tend to cause result to changes leading to either the central fatigue or the peripheral fatigue (Place et al., 2010). Place et al., (2010) explains that various research work done by other academics have indicated that prolonged exercises plays a key role in minimizing fatigue because of two main reasons. One of these reasons is loss of power output. The fact remains that we always need the functioning of muscles. The functioning of muscles occurs whether in prolonged exercises or in voluntary works. However, in prolonged exercise, individuals tend to experience minimal fatigue because of loss of power output.
For example, on the cases of athletes, the activities that they perform generally use the dynamic contraction. This means that they mostly use their muscles in order to strengthen and shorten their legs that lead to exhaustion within a certain period. The reduction of fatigue during such an exercise according to Place et al., (2010) occurs because of the fact that the decrease in isokinetic force tends to occur in several times compared to the decrease in isometric force of the human muscles located in the legs of these particular athletes. This translates to the fact that dynamic contractions require more energy compared to the isometric contractions.
The other reason that tends to cause prolonged relaxation leading to minimizing of fatigue is force relaxation. Place et al., (2010) indicates that the slowing of force relaxation tends to play a crucial role in minimizing fatigue on various muscle fibers of the body. In order for force relaxation to be effective in the body muscles, Place et al., (2010) indicates that certain mechanism tends to take place. One such mechanism is acidosis. The mechanism of acidosis entails that reduced rate of relaxation occurs because of greater performance of the muscles. This means that the more an individual works out the muscles, the more the rate of fatigue will minimize. The above information clearly shows that muscles are of significant importance in the human body as they play a crucial role in the reduction of fatigue.
Reference
Place, N., Yamada, T., Bruton, J., & Westerblad, H. (2010). Muscle fatigue: from observations in humans to underlying mechanisms studied in intact single muscle fibres. European Journal Of Applied Physiology, 110(1), 1-15.
