The Fast Lane:

contains: 

Home

HOME has a news page, a contact page and a site map for a quick overview.

Training

A complete overview of training principles, building blocks, scheduling and phasing, completed with scientific articles and real-life tips & examples.

CONTENT:
Training Principles 
Building Blocks 
Training Schedules
...

Racing

Advice for optimizing your performance, via clever tactics or a perfect preparation, Evaluate your performance with the Hungarian Scoring Tables.

CONTENT:
Racing Strategies
Mental Preparation
Analyzing Performances
Going for Gold
...

Drugs & Medicine

Racing faster is more than just training more and harder. Live a healthy life.

CONTENT:
Nutrition
Legal Supplements
Illegal Substances
Common Injuries
Muscles
...

Discussion

Post your opinion and discuss training, nutrition etc. with others.

Links

Discover the world of Athletics via these cool hyperlinks.

CONTENT:
Federations, Organizations
Belgian Clubs
Clubs around the world
Meets and Results
Statistics
Health
Training and Racing
Athlete's Pages
...

My Running

There's more to it than theory. Try it yourself! Or would you rather check out my schedules and results first?

Muscles

 The 3 Muscle types

Almost half the body's weight is muscle. Muscles are the part of our body that allow us to move. They are made up of special tissues that can contract, or shorten, when they receive a signal from the brain. The muscles are attached to bones by stretchy tissue called tendons. When the muscles contract, they pull on the tendons which pull on the bones and cause our limbs to move.

There are more than 640 muscles, and they hardly ever work alone. Muscles can get shorter and pull, but they cannot push. So most muscles are arranged in opposing teams. One team pulls the body part one way, then the other team pulls it back again. As each team pulls, the other team relaxes and gets stretched. Muscles band together to form muscle groups which work together. 

The muscular system consist of three different types of muscle tissues : skeletal, cardiac, smooth. Each of these different tissues has the ability to contract, which then allows body movements and functions. Muscles which we can control by ourselves are called the voluntary muscles; the ones we can't control are the involuntary muscles. The heart, or the cardiac muscle, is an example of involuntary muscle.

Cardiac Muscle: the cardiac muscles is the muscle of the brain itself. The cardiac muscle is the tissue that makes up the wall of the heart called the mydocardium. Also like the skeletal muscles, the cardiac muscle is striated and contracts through the sliding filament method. However it is different from other types of muscles because it forms branching fibers. Unlike the skeletal muscles, the cardiac muscle is attached together instead of been attach to a bone.

Skeletal Muscle: the skeletal muscle makes up about 40 % of an adults body weight. It has stripe-like markings, or striations. The skeletal muscles is composed of long muscle fibers. Each of these muscles fiber is a cell which contains several nuclei. The nervous system controls the contraction of the muscle. Many of the skeletal muscle contractions are automatic. However we still can control the action of the skeletal muscle. And it is because of this reason that the skeletal muscle is also called voluntary muscle.

Smooth Muscle: much of our internal organs is made up of smooth muscles. They are found in the urinary bladder, gallbladder, arteries, and veins. Also the digestive tract is made up of smooth muscle as well. The smooth muscles are controlled by the nervous system and hormones. We cannot consciously control the smooth muscle that is why they are often called involuntary muscles.

 The Human Body

Nutritional value of Foods

Figure 1: Human muscles - front view

Figure 2: Human muscles - back view

Visit the Innerbody website for a complete and detailed clickable image of the human muscles, or visit the Hosford Muscle Tables for an alphabetic list of all human muscles. Bartleby.com edition of Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body contains detailed information (and images) on arteries, muscles, bones etc. Definitely worth a visit!

Drugs & Medicine:

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ABSTRACTS, NEWS & ARTICLES:

NUTRITION:

- The 6 types of Nutritients
- Food Composition

LEGAL SUPPLEMENTS:

- Creatine Phosphate
- Vitamins
- Minerals

ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES:

- The IOC List of Prohibited Substances and Methods
- EPO
- HGH
- Anabolic Steroids
- Clenbuterol and Other Beta2 Agonists
- Caffeine
- Future products and methods

COMMON INJURIES:

- Achilles Tendinitis
- Stress Injuries

MUSCLES:

- The 3 Muscle types
- The Human Body

BODY FAT:

- Body Fat Percentage vs. Performance
- Calculating Body Fat percentage
- Calculating Your Body Fat percentage