What does muscle tissue have in common with a mythical Greek ship?

Have you ever heard of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment, which asks; if one part of a ship is replaced at a time, until every part has been replaced, is it still the same ship?
As it turns out, the same process happens all the time in our bodies, especially our muscles!

Think of your muscles as the ship. All the time, there is a fine balance between ship builders (called anabolic processes) and ship breakers (called catabolic processes). This is completely normal and is integral to the health of the muscle, as cells naturally get older and need replaced.

In a typical muscle, with adequate nutrition and a baseline level of activity, these processes balance each other out. The builders are triggered by stress (for muscles, this can include loading or fatigue, for example) and hormones. The breakers increase their effectiveness when more energy is needed by the body (for example when we enter a fight or flight mode in response to a troublesome situation), or when we are not consuming sufficient food to match our energy and nutritional requirements.

So an environment that promotes muscle anabolism (getting the builders to build more effectively) would be one that:

1.      Causes a stress to the body (e.g. a strengthening exercise or endurance exercise that fatigues a muscle)

2.      Has sufficient supply of energy and nutrients to permit the builders to build (a carpenter without wood can’t build a wooden chair, no matter how good they are..)

3.      Has a low level of systemic (body-wide) stress – a low level of systemic stress means that the body is adequately able to respond to the specific stressor applied (during exercises).

Conversely, an environment that promotes muscle catabolism (where the breakers are more effective than the builders, leading to muscle breakdown) would be one that:

1.      Doesn’t provide sufficient challenges for the muscles of the body (such as prolonged bed-rest)

2.      Does not have adequate supply of energy and nutrients (if the carpenter doesn’t have any wood, they may pinch some from a nearby building!)

3.      Has a higher level of systemic stress, either due to excessive overloading of the muscle without rest, or high levels of stress that lead to increased cortisol and adrenaline throughout the body – getting stuck in a chronic “fight or flight” mode.

Are you experiencing muscle pain that doesn’t go away? please give us a call at (02) 8411 2050. At Thornleigh Performance Physiotherapy, we can give you an accurate diagnosis and treatment to help you get back in action as soon as possible. We are conveniently located near Beecroft, Cherrybrook, Hornsby, Normanhurst, Pennant Hills, Waitara, Wahroonga, Westleigh, West Pennant Hills, and West Pymble.