What is Massage? Part 4c: Muscle Tissue

The main tissue associated with, and manipulated by, massage is MUSCLE. The gorgeous, elastic power-houses that produce movement and make horses the athletes they are. Hold on tight because this is going to be a very detailed post about this amazing tissue.

There are three types of muscle tissue:  

 

Smooth

Cardiac

Smooth tissue supports the epithelial tissue surrounding blood vessels and hollow organs. Cardiac tissue is a very specific tissue that makes up most of the heart’s bulk. Both of these tissues are involuntary, meaning they are not easily influenced by anything other than hormonal or chemical changes.

Skeletal

Skeletal tissue is the only voluntary type of muscle tissue and the most easily manipulated. It is influenced mainly by the nervous system and the skeletal muscles come in a variety of shapes and sizes. As discussed in the last post, a muscle has two tendons: and origin and an insertion. Between those tendons is what is called the belly.

(Hourdebaight, 27)

The belly is where the action of the muscle happens. It is made up of bundle of fibers. Nerve impulses cause the muscle fibers to react and fold over themselves causing the belly to contract which moves the skeleton.

These fibers are classified by color and contraction speed. Fast-twitch white, fast-twitch red, and slow-twitch red.

Fast-twitch white is low in myoglobin, a red protein that carries and stores oxygen, and most easily fatigued. Muscles with a higher ratio of white fibers are best suited to sprinting or sports that have sudden, short bursts of speed and anaerobic activity.

t3athlete.com/blog/2016/8/15/training-for-speed-developing-fast-twitch-muscle-fibers

Slow-twitch red is high in myoglobin and not easily fatigued. Muscles with a higher ratio of red fibers are best suited to endurance racing or sports with long, aerobic activity.

Horses also have fast-twitch red fibers which land between fast-white and slow-red in terms of resistance to fatigue. In humans, these fibers are very rare.

Genetics determine the ratio of white to red fibers and, therefore, what job a horse is best suited for. Quarter Horses have a higher white to red ratio and so are best for cutting, roping, and reining jobs which require them to chase after sporadically moving cattle. Arabians have a higher red to white ratio and are best suited for long slower travel over many miles.

Contraction happens when a muscle is stimulated by the nervous system. There are three types of contraction: concentric, eccentric, and isometric.

Concentric and eccentric contraction are what we recognize as movement. Concentric pulls a bone to move it, eccentric acts against concentric to stabilize the bone’s movement. So, while one muscle concentrically contracts, the opposing muscle slowly releases in eccentric contraction. Usually the muscles are situated on opposite sides of the bone or joint they are acting upon. The gif below shows both.

Isometric contraction occurs when the muscle contracts but no movement is seen, like when pushing against an immovable object. There is no shortening or elongation of the muscle during this type of contraction. You can see this happening when a horse is riding in a trailer attempting to keep its balance or when trying to pull a heavy load like in draft horse pulling competitions.

Muscles contract in groups with many muscles acting on one bone or joint. The muscle performing concentric contraction during movement is called the agonist, the muscle performing eccentric contraction is called the antagonist. Synergists are muscles that assist the main agonists and antagonists of a given group.

Muscles are divided by either their proximity to the skeleton, or the joints they affect.

There are the superficial muscles:

(Hourdebaight, 28)

These muscles are the outer most layer of muscles, the furthest from the skeleton. They are easily seen when a horse is moving. You can also see some of the planes of fascia in the image on the far left, pictured as the white areas.

  

These are the deep muscles:

(Hourdebaight, 36)

 These muscles are between the superficial and the extremely deep muscles that hold the spine together. Most of these are the largest in the body and hold the most power. They are harder to affect, but not impossibly so.

And congratulations. You have made it through some very difficult and complex information. It can be overwhelming if you try to absorb it all at once, so I suggest you read the posts multiple times and refer back to them with future posts. The next post will be on different massage techniques.

What is Massage? Part 4b: Connective Tissue

This post is going to be short. The following post which will be on muscles and their fibers, therefore, very long and I did not want to overwhelm anyone with and overload of technical information.

The next tissue in our series is connective. It connects the skeleton and muscular systems and over all holds the body together.

There are three types of connective tissue: Ligaments, Tendons, and Fascia. They are all made out of collagen, but each are different densities.

Fascia:

(Color Atlas, plate 15)

Fascia is a very recent discovery. Well, not discovery, it has been there forever. It has been around for as long as animals have had muscles that needed to slide easily over each other. For a long time, no one knew what it was or did, so during surgeries doctors would remove and discard the “white film” that covered the muscles before suturing the animal/person back up. Now, however, studies have found that it is a massive web-like tissue that winds its way around everything in the body. It varies in density and can be superficial (between the skin and muscles) or deep (wrapping around and covering some deeper muscles from view). Fascia holds it all together, like a huge spiderweb holds flies, except not as icky.

Ligaments:

(Hourdebaight, 24)

Ligaments are a very strong connective tissue that hold the bones of the skeleton together:

(Hourdebaight, 22)

They wrap around joints and help protect from abnormal range of motion, sudden strain, and torque. These bands are made of collagen fibers and are the least flexible of the connective tissues so they can hold their shape. They have minimal blood flow which hinders their ability to heal when injured, which, in severe cases may need to be fixed surgically. 
A rule of thumb of rest for recovering ligaments is one month for every letter in the word: L-I-G-A-M-E-N-T= 8 months.

 Tendons:

(Scott, 18)

As shown, tendons connect muscles to bone. They are dense fibers very similar to ligaments. They have high tensile strength that allows them to endure large amounts of tension. The muscle attached usually cannot produce enough force to rupture its tendons, so they do not tear easily and it can be devastating when they do. They are not as elastic as muscle fibers, but are more so than ligaments. They also have limited blood flow, but more so than ligaments. 
Therefore, they heal more quickly than ligaments, but not as quickly as muscle. 
T-E-N-D-O-N= 6 months.

Each muscle has two tendons: the origin and the insertion. The origin connects to the least moveable bone, and the insertion connects to the most moveable. The muscle acts on the two tendons to bring the insertion towards the origin.

What is Massage? Part 4a: Soft Tissue

What is Massage? Part 4: Soft Tissue

Now we will discuss soft tissue. Just like there are four main shapes of bone, there are four main types of soft tissue:

1. Epithelial
2. Nervous
3. Connective
4. Muscle

In this post, we will briefly address the first two types.

Epithelial tissue is the tissue that lines organs, the surfaces of vessels, and any cavities of the body; it also makes up all of the glands in the body that produce and distribute hormones.

Two well-known system of the body that is made of epithelial tissue are: 

 The Skin. It is the largest organ of the body and it interfaces with the environment serving as a barrier. It also provides sensory information, offers flexible support, controls loss of water and immunological responses, regulates blood pressure, and controls body temperature.

 And the Digestive System:

This is the source of all energy and nutrients that feeds every other system in the body. It can be extremely sensitive to extreme changes in diet and has evolved to process many types of plants, including grasses, weeds, and some grains.

 

One of the most important systems of the body to massage is also mostly made up of this tissue:

The Circulatory System.

This is a very important system and is a combination of two parts: The Cardiovascular and The Lymphatic systems.

The Cardiovascular system consists of the heart and all the blood vessels; arteries and veins.

The main mover of this system is the heart. It uses blood to distribute oxygen from the lungs and nutrients from the stomach to keep the other systems fed and working properly. The beating of the heart pumps blood through the arteries to arterioles, through capillaries in other tissue, through venules to the veins, into the lungs, and finally back to the heart. It also removes toxins. The entire body depends upon this system working properly. 

The Lymphatic system consists of the lymph nodes and lymph vessels:

It keeps the body safe from sickness and infections. The lymph nodes create immune cells called lymphocytes. Lymphocytes are a type of white blood cell that produce antibodies and attack any of the body’s cells that have become contaminated by bacteria or viruses. Unlike the cardiovascular system, this system only flows one way: from the outer parts of the body towards the heart; and because there is no pumping mechanism like the heart attached to the system, the fluid is slow to move through the vessels. What moves this liquid is muscle activity which squeezes it through the vessels past valves that prevent back flow and keeps everything moving in the right direction.

The Nervous System:

 The nervous system is made up of nervous tissue. Nervous tissue is made up of filaments that are extremely sensitive to pressure. When pressure is applied, peripheral nerves, consisting of sensory and motor nerves, send information from the body to the central nervous system. Often compared to a high powered, complex computer, the central nervous system consists of the spinal cord and the brain. Its functioning is ensured by what we call the autonomous nervous system. It ensures a stable environment and is made up of two divisions: the sympathetic and parasympathetic.

The sympathetic division is responsible for the horse’s fight or flight response. In response to stimuli, this system increases the heart rate, blood pressure, breathing volume, and blood flow to muscles. The parasympathetic division is responsible for everything else: for the body’s functions during times of rest, sleep, digestion, and elimination. Stimulation of this division promotes relaxation and smooth functions of the involuntary systems of the body like breathing and circulation.


These two systems are not only important for the body's proper function, but knowledge of these systems can help a massage therapist promote the best response to get the needed release of tension.