Muscle tone

“ We can now go a step further and ask the question, What is there in the blood that thus gives to the muscle the power of contracting, that in other words keeps the muscle alive? The answer is very easily found. What is the name commonly given to this power of a muscle to contract? We generally call it strength. Lay your arm straight out on the table, put a heavy weight in your hand, and try to bend your arm. If you could do it, one would say you were strong; if you could not, one would say you were weak—all the stronger or weaker, the heavier or lighter the weight. ”

“ Making the Muscles Strong.—No persons use all of the five hundred muscles in the body every day. In slow walking only about twenty muscles are used, while in running more than four times that number are called into action. Muscles which are not used get lazy and weak.
Every time a muscle is made to act the blood vessels enlarge and bring to it more blood to supply food. The more food the muscle has the stronger it grows. The right arm is used more than the left in most persons. ”

“ Strip a strong arm, and regard the knotted muscles when the hand is clenched and the arm bent. Is this exhibition of energy the work of the muscle alone? By no means. The muscle is the channel of an influence, without which it would be as powerless as a lump of plastic dough. ”

“ The muscle, directly that “something” comes to it along its nerves, contracts, shortens, and grows thick; it rises up in the arm; its lower tendon pulls at the radius; the radius with the ulna moves on the fulcrum of the humerus at the elbow-joint, and the arm is bent. ”

“ Of course this possibility of variation is of great advantage in our use of our muscles. It depends upon the very large number of individual fibers of which even our smallest muscles are made up. Whenever any single fiber contracts, it pulls to its full extent; if only a few become active, the pull of the whole muscle will be slight; as more come into action, more force will be exerted; the muscle will show its utmost power when all the fibers are contracting at once. We are conscious of greater mental effort when we make a powerful muscular contraction. ”

“ Very rarely is motion produced by the action of a single muscle, but by the harmonious action of several. There is infinite variety in the arrangement of the muscles, each being adapted to its purpose, in strength, tenacity, or elasticity. While some involuntarily respond to the wants of organic life, others obey, with mechanical precision, the edicts of the will. The peculiar characteristic of the muscles is their contractility; for example, when the tip of the finger is placed in the ear, an incessant vibration, due to the contraction of the muscles of the ear, can be heard. ”

“ There is a little tell-tale muscle in the inner corner of the eye, which, if you question it, will deliver a report into your looking-glass touching the state of the whole muscular system which lies elsewhere hidden in your body. When it is pale, it praises you. Muscular development is, by all means, to be kept down. ”

“ From these facts, as well as from the great force with which the muscle contracts, one must conclude that the muscle is a transformer of energy—that within its protoplasm, chemical changes take place whereby the potential energy of oxygen and food is converted into the kinetic energy of motion.
Fig. 113—Capillaries of muscles. Plan of Using Muscular Force.—Two difficulties have to be overcome in the using of muscular force in the body. The first of these is due to the fact that the muscles exert their force only when they contract. They can pull but not push. ”

“ Why does the muscle contract when that something reaches it? We must be content to say that it is the property of the muscle. But it does not always possess this property. Suppose you were to tie a cord very tightly around the top of the arm close to the shoulder. If you tied it tight enough the arm would become pale, and would very soon begin to grow cold. ”

“ The muscles are the chief organs of motion, and consist of collections of fine fibres or strings, united in [Pg 75] casings of membrane or thin skin. They possess an elastic power, like India rubber, which enables them to extend and contract. The red meat in animals consists of muscles. Every muscle has connected with it nerves, veins, and arteries; and those designed to move the bones, are fastened to them by tendons at their extremities. ”

“ The muscles at f, are those which enable us to turn the hand and arm outward. Every different motion of the arm has one muscle to produce it, and another to restore the limb to its natural position. Those muscles which bend the body are called flexors ”

“ That is to say, in the average constitution, no superfluous strength is possessed by any of the appliances for circulating the blood. Take, again, a set of motor organs. Great strain here causes the fibres of a muscle to tear. There the muscle does not yield but the tendon snaps. ”

“ Muscles Express and Impress Ideas
The coordinated muscles express the mental attitude, as we have perceived; and equally they impress the mind with their attitude. If you have a sagging chin, you are incapable of the mental bulldog grip of persistence. So tighten up your jaw muscles, and never let them hang utterly loose, if you are resolved to develop the characteristic of "stick-to-it-iveness." Begin with muscle training, for your muscles must be utilized to start the process of building up your brain-mind center of persistence. ”

“ Then the immense power of muscle is displayed in the concentrated energy of the spring; he flies through the air and settles on the throat, usually throwing his own body over the animal, while his teeth and claws are fixed on the neck ”

“ The redness of a muscle, in fact, depends in a great measure on the degree of exertion it undergoes; thus when a limb becomes motionless from palsy, the muscles uniformly become pale.—The function of a muscle consists in its contracting or shortening itself, in consequence of the application of certain stimuli or excitements; the effect of this contraction is, that the different bones to which the muscles are attached are moved in various directions. ”

“ We must try to discover, for instance, what there is in common between the muscle in repose and the muscle in contraction, and to perceive in the muscular tonus a kind of bridge thrown between these two conditions. The functional activity would be uninterrupted, but it would have its degrees of activity. The muscular tonus would be the permanent condition of an activity which is capable only of being considerably raised or lowered. ”

“ This interpretation seems, indeed, to be directly at variance with the fact that muscle does not diminish in bulk during contraction but merely changes its shape. That which we see take place with the muscle as a whole, is said also to take place with each fibre—while it shortens it also broadens. ”

“ And in many cases several muscles look like one single muscle in the increase of fat; and in many cases, in growing lean or old, one single muscle divides into several muscles. And in this treatise, each in its place, all their peculiarities will be explained—and particularly as to the spaces between the joints of each limb &c. ”

“ How the Muscles do their Work.—A tiny nerve [Pg 143] thread runs from the spinal cord or brain to every muscle thread. Messages sent through the nerve threads to the muscles make them act. A muscle can act in only two ways (Fig. 84) . It can become shorter or longer. When it gets shorter, we say it contracts. When it stretches out, it is said to relax.
A muscle cannot contract more than one fourth of its length. To pull the forearm up, the brain sends a message to the muscle fixed by one end at the shoulder and by the other end to a bone at the elbow. ”

“ Success in muscle-reading depends upon the powers of the principal and upon the susceptibility of the subject. The latter must be capable of mental concentration; he must exert no muscular self-control; he must obey his every impulse. Under these conditions, the phenomena are in accordance with known laws of physiology. On [Pg 43] the part of the principal, muscle-reading consists of an acute perception of the slight action of another’s muscles. ”

“ Both evidently derive the principle of the activity that marks them from the same external and internal media; but, while the muscle, a mechanical organ, is limited to the obedient transformation of the force assigned to it, under the form of heat, into a measurable amount of work, the nerve, a vital organ, remains impenetrable and inaccessible to our calculations, and exerts its characteristic and sovereign powers in its own way, through a series of operations that escape all estimates of their force and heat. On the part of the muscular system, every thing can be measured ”

“ Moreover, we know that all the movements of the limbs depend on the muscles, and that these muscles are opposed to one another in such a manner, that when one of them shortens, it draws along the part of the body to which it is attached, and so gives rise to a simultaneous elongation of the muscle which is opposed to it. ”

“ In studying the action of a muscle it is necessary to note its points of attachment to harder structures, either bone or cartilage. Nearly always one such point is more fixed than the other, and from this the muscle pulls when it contracts. ”

“ Every muscle, in fact, consists in the first place of a mass of muscular substance. This muscular substance is made up of an immense number of soft strings or fibres, all running in one direction and done up into large and small bundles. At either end of the muscle these soft muscular fibres are joined on to firmer but thinner fibres of connective or fibrous{29} tissue. And these thinner but firmer fibres make up the cord or band of tendon with which the muscle finishes off at either end. ”

“ The immediate effect of exercise, however, is upon the muscles themselves; for by use they become firm and large, and increase in power. If we examine a muscle thus improved by exercise, we find that its fibres have become larger and more closely blended together, that its color is of a darker red, and that the supply of blood-vessels has increased. Without exercise the muscle appears thin, flabby, and pale. On the other hand, excessive exercise, without sufficient relaxation, produces in the muscle a condition not very different from that which follows disuse. ”

“ As for the weights and clubs and dumb-bells, you feel as if there must be some jugglery about them,—they have grown so much lighter than they used to be. It is you who have gained a double set of muscles to every limb; that is all. Strike out from the shoulder with your clenched hand; once your arm was loose-jointed and shaky; now it is firm and tense, and begins to feel like a natural arm. Moreover, strength and suppleness have grown together; you have not stiffened by becoming stronger, but find yourself more flexible. ”

“ The greater the displacement of the line of gravity, the greater the muscular effort required to maintain the equilibrium of the body. Up to a certain extent, exercising the muscle develops the strength and size of the muscle. On the other hand, when a muscle within the body is unused, it wastes; when used within certain limits, it grows. But when the corset splint is applied to the body of the young girl, it supplants the functions of the abdominal and back muscles, which is to hold the trunk erect, and these muscles gradually grow weak and waste. ”

“ That the muscles of the arm, that all muscles in fact should be in a state of efficiency is highly desirable, but in a sedentary life, in the life for which exercises are most obviously useful, it is the large muscle-areas, the muscles which the stillness of sitting tends to degenerate, that should be kept up to the scratch. ”

“ For example, the strongest muscle in the body is that by which one rises on the toes. This muscle operates by pulling upward at the back of the heel. If it were located right at the ankle, where it would have to be if attached directly to the place where its force is exerted, the resulting clumsiness can easily be imagined. ”

“ It thus becomes a point of no slight importance to establish general principles by which that exercise may be regulated.
In every part of the animal economy, the muscles are proportioned in size and structure to the efforts required of them. Whenever a muscle is called into frequent use, its fibers increase in thickness within certain limits, and become capable of acting with greater force and readiness. ”

“ A contracted muscle, according to this view, is like a strong band of india-rubber pulling on two pieces of wood and drawing them together. In like manner, when a muscle contracts, a similar elastic power is developed that pulls upon the bones and causes movement. When the contraction ceases, the muscle returns to its original length, again by elasticity, but acting in the opposite way.
What is this property of irritability by virtue of which the muscle responds to a stimulus and contracts? ”

“ Muscular Sensations.—These are sensations produced by impulses arising at the muscles. Such impulses originate at the fiber terminations which are found in both the muscles and their tendons. By muscular sensations one is conscious of the location of a contracting muscle and of the degree of its tension. ”

“ If it were possible to collect all the results of the muscular activity of men, from the beginning of civilization until the present, and likewise all the results of the muscular activity of women for the same period, we should reason instantaneously, from these phenomena, to the superior quality of masculine muscle. We should need no resurrection of dead men and women to demonstrate the difference. ”