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Promoting the interplay between joints and muscles throughout life
Unleash your full potential for movement
The good news is: despite counterproductive modern influences, everyone has the power – and this applies to every stage of life – to boost their body's potential through regular exercise. Otherwise, there's a risk that the musculoskeletal system will continuously deteriorate and suffer damage from wear and tear over time. Health, therefore, depends directly on one's mobility – true to the saying "use it or lose it." But you don't have to become a competitive athlete. Moderate training is usually enough to stay fit even in old age. The guiding principle is:
the more an organ or the musculoskeletal system is challenged, the higher its performance. Staying "40" for 20 years, keeping your biological age low through moderate but regular exercise – that should be the health-promoting fitness goal.
Knowing your body is good for it….
Effective care and maintenance of the musculoskeletal system—comprising bones, joints, muscles, ligaments, cartilage, and tendons—can also be enhanced by sound knowledge of anatomy. Understanding the complex structure of the human body, which both stabilizes and mobilizes us, allows for a better grasp of how only through active, measured effort can our finely balanced biomechanical system remain healthy and resilient in the long run. Ultimately, good physical condition results from the smooth and harmonious interplay of all the tissue types involved. And there are a great many: our complex musculoskeletal system consists of over 200 bones, 600 muscles, and approximately 140 joints. If we include the connections at the bony hinges, which, through tendons and ligaments, enable flexible mobility, the number rises to 360.
Heavy muscle power
One of the "big players" in this process is muscle. In humans, it makes up an average of forty percent of body weight, with men having significantly more than women. However, muscle mass is not homogeneous. It consists of fine muscle fibers arranged in bundles. Flexibility is ensured by protein molecules that, due to their biochemical properties, can slide past one another. This allows a muscle to contract, shorten, and then lengthen again when it relaxes
Bones and joints
These flexible physical forces ultimately unfold in functional unity with bones and joints – setting us in motion… allowing us to walk, jump, swim, grasp, or lift. The mobilizing muscles are located on the skeleton, primarily at the movable hinges. Here, robust connective tissue strands – the tendons – connect the two tissue types, so that both the tensile dynamics and the relaxation of the muscle fibers result in optimally controlled movement. It is obvious that joints are under extreme stress throughout life and rarely have periods of rest. But biology has also provided for this: where two bones that fit together precisely in shape and position constantly rub against each other, the risk of wear and tear is high. Thus, in addition to a protective outer joint capsule, the respective contact zones on the joint head and the joint socket are covered with a thin layer of flexible cartilage, which, through its dense network of collagen fibers, acts as a shock absorber. In addition, the 'right' dose of synovial fluid minimizes friction at this point and supplies the cartilage substance – which has no blood vessels – with important nutrients such as minerals and amino acids.
Stay flexible…
This biochemical mechanism only functions during physical activity. Movement is what forces oxygen and nutrient-rich synovial fluid into the joint space – a process comparable to a pump. Without this pump, the cartilage "starves," and sooner or later, degenerative, painful damage to the joint can occur. This, in turn, could trigger a vicious cycle of pain and movement avoidance, which would ultimately also impair muscle contractions. All functions and processes of our musculoskeletal system are therefore interdependent and interconnected: bones and muscles are reliable partners that are only strong together! However, the true engine of a healthy musculoskeletal system remains the musculature. It is the stabilizing factor that not only controls our skeletal framework and joints and cushions them against impacts, but also keeps them fit through continuous activity. Those who keep this in mind and firmly integrate mobility as an essential element into their lives will be able to rely on their bones, which will then be surprisingly healthy, even in old age.
