Are you aware that your muscles and bones play key roles in proper exercises? Well, most workout enthusiasts know that you need to exercise to have strong bones and muscles. While that is true, you must also understand that it is the muscles and bones that help us to carry out those exercises in the first place. So having a good and robust body structure should be the first consideration.

A good chiropractor can ensure you have the proper body structure to get the maximum benefits from your muscles and bones during exercise. But what are the key roles of muscle and bone for proper exercise, and what benefits does your body get? Let’s learn more about it below;

Types of Muscles in the Body

The human body has three main types of muscles, all of which play an essential role in exercise. These are:

  • Skeletal Muscles
  • Soft Muscles
  • Cardiac Muscles

Skeletal muscles, as the name suggests, support the skeleton and move the bones. They fall under different groups, such as the arms’ skeletal muscles like triceps brachii and the legs’ skeletal muscles, such as the fibularis longus. Skeletal muscles play various roles during exercises, which include movement and support.

Soft muscles are common for producing involuntary responses. They are mostly found on walls of blood vessels and the stomach, among other areas. While these play vital roles in exercises, they indirectly do so by ensuring an efficient supply of oxygen or nutrients.

Cardiac muscles are involuntary muscles located around the wall of the heart. They pump blood throughout the body to ensure a proper supply of blood during exercise. This, in turn, ensures nutrients and oxygen is supplied to the working muscles.

What are the Key Roles of Muscles during Exercise?

The three main types of muscles play essential roles during exercise. But it is the properties of muscle tissues that enable them to perform these tasks. Let’s look at properties that make muscle tissues perform exercises.

Contractibility

Muscle contractions are caused by myofibrils which are referred to as the contractile units of the muscles. These contractions can be described in 3 ways, namely concentric, isometric, and eccentric.

  • Concentric contraction occurs when your muscles generate tension enough to lift a load by contracting and becoming shorter.
  • Isometric contraction takes place when muscles generate tension while maintaining their length.
  • Eccentric contraction occurs when your muscles generate tension, and in the process, its length increases.

During exercise, for instance, weight lifting, the three contractions work in collaboration to provide the arm’s up and down movements.

When you lift the weight from your waist area towards the chest, concentric contractions occur. The tension generated helps you to lift the load. At the same time, the muscles become shorter.

As you lower the weights from the chest towards the waist, the muscles elongate, and sufficient tension is generated to move the weight towards the waist.

Once the weight reaches the waist area, isometric contractions occur, and muscles produce enough tension to support the weight with no muscle length change.

Extensibility

Muscle extensibility is the ability of your muscles to stretch without tearing. The muscles’ ability to extend without tearing enables you to perform several exercises, such as stretching exercises. 

Stretching exercises are essential to our body. In any complete workout routine, you must include 5 to 10 minutes of stretching before and after a workout. This provides your body with many benefits, including proper blood flow, enhanced performance, better flexibility, reduced chance of injury, among others.

Elasticity

Do you feel pain when exercising, or do you get easily injured during a workout? Well, that could be a problem with your muscles. When muscles are elastic and supple, you’re likely to avoid these problems during a workout.

Muscle elasticity is the ability of your muscles to stretch and return to their original length with ease. If it were not for this, the body would be restricted during exercise leading to poor performance. 

Improved muscle elasticity plays several roles during exercises. Some of these include; increased muscle power during a workout, decreased tension, and increased movement range.

Types of Bones in the Body

The human body is made up of 206 bones. These bones fall under five main categories, which are;

  • Long bones
  • Short bones
  • Flat bones
  • Sesamoid bones
  • Irregular bones

What are the Key Roles of Bones during Exercise?

Bones play significant roles in the body, some of which directly or indirectly affect workout performance. Here are some roles of bones during exercise.

Production of blood cells

Red blood cells are produced in the red marrow, which is found in bones. It is the red blood cells that play an essential role in exercise.

During a workout, the body muscles work harder; they use more oxygen and give out more carbon dioxide. These two products have to be moved fast in the body. The red blood cells transport oxygen from the lungs to tissues and carry out CO2 from the tissues to the lungs. 

Red blood cells also produce ATP, which is essential in improving blood flow to the working muscles. This is why athletes and people who partake in exercises have more red blood cells than those living a sedentary life.

Movement

During exercise, there is muscle contraction generating considerable stress on the body. Bones play a vital role in the transmission of this force to the fascia.

Also, during muscle exercise, the muscles contract to allow for movement. The bones act as levers to allow for muscle movement, which is necessary during workout sessions.

Support

Bones provide support to the body parts and define our shape. If you have stronger bones, it means you can support more weight.

Bones play an important role in exercise. The stronger your bones are, the better you perform in activities like sports and workouts.

Also, since muscle size is closely associated with bones’ size and strength, you’re more likely to perform better in weightlifting activities that require strong muscles. This is because the body can only allow you to lift the weight that your muscles can support. If you lift more weight, you’ll exert stress on your muscle tissues and cause injuries.

Wrapping up

Muscle and bones play a vital role in exercising. Having strong bones and muscles will not only help you perform better in exercises, but it will also protect you from injury. Before preparing a workout schedule, check your muscles and bones’ health and create a routine that suits you.