Twitching??

i sometimes get repeated muscle twitches after a workout. i’ve always taken this to mean that i’ve had a good workout and that i’m building muscle. is that true, or is really a negative or neutral indicator of muscle buildup?

To say this basically, during a workout, your muscles use Calcium to initiate contraction (it actually binds to the Troponin Complex in a mysoin head on a muscle fibre (thick filament) and causes the troponin complex and tropomyosin to shift which exposes binding sites on the thin filament enabling the head to bind and initiate a crossbridge ready for contraction). Therefore, it is likely that you have exhausted your supply of calcium during the workout and the heads cannot bind correctly. So just take calcium suppliments in the morning or before your workout.

If this does not work then it will most likely be a potassium deficiency which will cause your neurones to have a different ion resting potential slightly changing the nerves potential difference and causing them to misfire. To my knowledge there is not much you can do about this.

[quote]francisbouillon wrote:
If this does not work then it will most likely be a potassium deficiency which will cause your neurones to have a different ion resting potential slightly changing the nerves potential difference and causing them to misfire. To my knowledge there is not much you can do about this.[/quote]

How about getting more potassium?

Eat more bananas and cheese.

-Dan

very interesting. I drink at least 2 cups of milk everyday, so I don’t think its a ca2+ thing. It might be a K+ problem I guess, but why would a change in resting neuron membrane potential affect only the site that I worked out?
On another note: what about the burn? I’ve heard that’s due to lactic acid buildup, which is bad. But, does that feeling still mean that your workout was good?

Yes that does mean its a good workout. Lactic acid is produced primamrily when your fast twitch fibres cells respire (anaerobically)…so its all good. Presumably you want to recruit fast twitch fibres for strength.