myofibril connection, contraction speed, and recruitment speed.

[dtarrence]

Hey coaches,

I just finished rereading the neural adaptation section of PP and I came up with what I think are some interesting questions.

1) Are there ever any muscle cells in a muscle which are not connected to any motor neuron?

2) Is there a physiological adaptation which can increase the speed of the actin/myocin reaction and therefore the speed of the motor unit contraction?

The more motor units that are contracted overall, the more force being produced at one time; and the faster that ALL of these units are recruited, the more power the muscle displays. The problem is that there seems to be a hierarchy of individual motor units and which ones contracted at different points during a single contraction. "Stronger"/higher threshold units don't come into play until later. So...

3) Is there a physiological adaptation which can increase how soon into the contraction ALL the motor units are recruited?

BONUS) Should we desire MORE or LESS fibers per motor unit for the sake of total body strength?

Seems like having too low a ratio in the delicate structures of the hands, eyes, mouth, etc. would wreak absolute havoc on finer motor function. On the other hand having a high ratio in the quads, pecs, glutes, etc. would just decrease the likelihood of having them ALL fire at once.

[Hayden-William Courtland]

1) Effectively no save for cases of neurological disease, tissue necrosis, or damage from traumatic injury.

2) Not that I am aware of.

3) Training muscle contraction (lifting) will improve this initially, but then it appears largely limited by genetics and your muscle fiber type repertoire. Remember, depending on the type of activity you are doing, having all your fibers recruited isn't necessarily beneficial (i.e., running a marathon will be more productive if your Type I are firing).

Bonus: For strength, fine motor control is less of an issue, so whatever gets more fibers contracting is what matters.