# muscles



## mike456 (Sep 23, 2006)

Can someone explain to me whats the difference between short, tight, strong, and overactive muscles are? (or is it all the same thing)

and what is the difference between long, and weak muscles? 
if a muscle is longer than its antagonist muscle can it be a stronger than its antagonist muscle? 
Im very confused with all this termanology


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## P-funk (Sep 23, 2006)

mike456 said:


> Can someone explain to me whats the difference between short, tight, strong, and overactive muscles are? (or is it all the same thing)
> 
> and what is the difference between long, and weak muscles?
> if a muscle is longer than its antagonist muscle can it be a stronger than its antagonist muscle?
> Im very confused with all this termanology



short, tight and overactive are all terms used to describe hypertonic muscles, or overactive muscles.  they are essentially the same type of thing.

long or weak muscles, are usuaully used to describe hyotonic muscles, or underactive muscles.  

Although, a muscle could be long (ie have a normal resting length) and not be weak or underative at all.  Similiarly, a muscle could be strong (ie posess lots of force potential) and still be long (have a normal resting length).

Typically if a muscle is tight or overactive, its antagonist (the muscle direclty opposite of the agonist) is weak, lengthened, overstretched (any of those terms are used in textbooks).  This happens because of recipricoal inhibition.  Basically, recipricoal inhibition is the phenomenon in the human body that states, when a muscle contracts (agonist), its functional antagonist relaxes so as not to interfere with joint movement.  Think about a biceps curl.  You curl your arm.  If you were to contract your tricep (the antagonist) during that biceps curl, your arm would stop in place, you probably wouldn't get very far.  Since one muscle is an elbow extensor and one muscle is an elbow flexor.


So, lets apply this to something that you can visualize......

Lets say, someone with a tight chest, and rounded shoulders.  okay, they have what has been termed in the physical therapy world as "upper-crossed syndrome".  Basically, their chest (pec major) is tight along with other interal rotators of the shoulder like the lattisumus doris, teres major, subscapularis and the anterior delt, as well the pec minor is usually tight and causing an anterior tilt to the scapula.

So, those muscles are tight, they are basically decreasing the neural drive to the muscles that externally rotate the shoulder (infraspinatus, teres minor) as well as those muscles that depress the scapula (or keep it from anterior tilting and keep it stationary on the spine), like the mid and lower trapezius, the rhomboids and the serratus anterior.  these are the muscles that are lengthend and weak (hypotonic).

Now, putting that into something you can use, you basically see that you need to stretch what is hyperonic (the internal rotators) and strengthen that which is hypotonic (the external rotators and the scpular depressors and stabilizers).



Hope that helps to clarify a little bit.


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## mike456 (Sep 23, 2006)

P-funk said:


> short, tight and overactive are all terms used to describe hypertonic muscles, or overactive muscles.  they are essentially the same type of thing.
> 
> long or weak muscles, are usuaully used to describe hyotonic muscles, or underactive muscles.
> 
> ...



Yes thanks alot


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## AKIRA (Sep 23, 2006)

Hmm, good answer P.
I gotta say, I am pretty impressed with mike456.  Hes young yes, but unlike kenwood, he is like a sponge to information and applies it.  

Nothing like a person that pays attention...


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## mike456 (Sep 23, 2006)

I am starting to understand wich trainers are good and the trainers that are not good, good trainers will test there clients with certain movements, to see what muscles are tight and wich ones are long/weak, because if it is not balanced it can cause lots of problems in posture, and athletic performance, and lead to injury.


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## mike456 (Sep 23, 2006)

and bad trainers, will just write you a weight lifting routine, with a couple minutes of warmup on the treadmill, and scream at you when your lifting weights.


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## mike456 (Sep 23, 2006)

AKIRA said:


> Hmm, good answer P.
> I gotta say, I am pretty impressed with mike456.  Hes young yes, but unlike kenwood, he is like a sponge to information and applies it.
> 
> Nothing like a person that pays attention...



yea thanks alot, but I bet if I didn't suffer from these things, I wouldn't give 2shits about it, lol, but once I started reading... this stuff is really interesting


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## AKIRA (Sep 23, 2006)

Here here.

Now that I am going through back pain and 'rehab' I can train clients with first hand knowledge.  My obsession with getting better is making me smarter than my chiro!


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## P-funk (Sep 23, 2006)

i think you both hinted on reasons why certain people become professionals in certain areas and really concentrate their studies.  Often times, we have a problem or an issue with ourselves that we want to jump in and learn everything about.

Mike, really work on fixing yourself up, you are going to have a great knowledge to take from all your studies and, if this is the field that you some day attempt to persue a career in, I have no doubt that you will do very well.


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