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The muscle cross-sectional area (blue line in figure 1, also known as anatomical cross-section area, or ACSA) does not accurately represent the number of muscle fibers in the muscle. A better estimate is provided by the total area of the cross-sections perpendicular to the muscle fibers (green lines in figure 1).
Sarcoplasm is the cytoplasm of a muscle cell. It is comparable to the cytoplasm of other cells, but it contains unusually large amounts of glycogen (a polymer of glucose), myoglobin, a red-colored protein necessary for binding oxygen molecules that diffuse into muscle fibers, and mitochondria.
Muscles with short fibers will have higher PCSA per unit muscle mass, thus greater force production, while muscle with long fibers will have lower PCSA per unit muscle mass, thus lower force production. However, muscles with longer fibers will shorten at greater absolute speeds than a similar muscle with shorter fibers. [2]
A myofibril (also known as a muscle fibril or sarcostyle) [1] is a basic rod-like organelle of a muscle cell. [2] Skeletal muscles are composed of long, tubular cells known as muscle fibers, and these cells contain many chains of myofibrils. [3] Each myofibril has a diameter of 1–2 micrometres. [3]
Broadly there are two types of muscle fiber performing in muscle contraction, either as slow twitch or fast twitch . A single muscle such as the biceps brachii in a young adult human male contains around 253,000 muscle fibers. [11] Skeletal muscle fibers are the only muscle cells that are multinucleated with the nuclei usually referred to as ...
Each muscle fiber contains sarcolemma, sarcoplasm, and sarcoplasmic reticulum. The functional unit of a muscle fiber is called a sarcomere. [2] Each muscle cell contains myofibrils composed of actin and myosin myofilaments repeated as a sarcomere. [3] Many nuclei are present in each muscle cell placed at regular intervals beneath the sarcolemma.
Muscle fibers can only contract up to 40% of their fully stretched length. [citation needed] Thus the short fibers of pennate muscles are more suitable where power rather than range of contraction is required. This limitation in the range of contraction affects all muscles, and those that act over several joints may be unable to shorten ...
While the research on muscle fiber remodeling is on-going, there are generally accepted facts about the myofilament from the American College of Sports Medicine. [citation needed] It is thought that an increase in muscle strength is due to an increase in muscle fiber size, not an increase in number of muscle fibers and myofilaments. However ...