WORK OUTPUT DURING MUSCLE CONTRACTION
When a muscle contracts against a load, it performs work. To perform work means that energy is transferred from the muscle to the external load to lift an object to a greater height or to overcome resistance to movement.
In mathematical terms, work is defined by the following equation:
W = L × D
in which W is the work output, L is the load, and D is the distance of movement against the load. The energy required to perform the work is derived from the chemical reactions in the muscle cells during contraction, as described in the following sections.
THREE SOURCES OF ENERGY FOR MUSCLE CONTRACTION
Most of the energy required for muscle contraction is used to actuate the walk-along mechanism by which the cross-bridges pull the actin filaments, but small amounts are required for (1) pumping calcium ions from the sarcoplasm into the sarcoplasmic reticulum after the con traction is over and (2) pumping sodium and potassium ions through the muscle fiber membrane to maintain an appropriate ionic environment for propagation of muscle fiber action potentials.
T he concentration of ATP in the muscle fiber, about 4 millimolar, is sufficient to maintain full contraction for only 1 to 2 seconds at most. The ATP is split to form ADP, which transfers energy from the ATP molecule to the contracting machinery of the muscle fiber. T hen, as described in Chapter 2, the ADP is rephosphorylated to form new ATP within another fraction of a second, which allows the muscle to continue its con traction. There are three sources of the energy for this rephosphorylation.
The first source of energy that is used to reconstitute the ATP is the substance phosphocreatine, which carries a high-energy phosphate bond similar to the bonds of ATP. The high-energy phosphate bond of phosphocreatine has a slightly higher amount of free energy than that of each ATP bond, as is discussed more fully in Chapters 68 and 73. Therefore, phosphocreatine is instantly cleaved, and its released energy causes bonding of a new phosphate ion to ADP to reconstitute the ATP. However, the total amount of phosphocreatine in the muscle fiber is also small—only about five times as great as the ATP. Therefore, the combined energy of both the stored ATP and the phosphocreatine in the muscle is capable of causing maximal muscle contraction for only 5 to 8 seconds.
The second important source of energy, which is used to reconstitute both ATP and phosphocreatine, is “glycolysis” of glycogen previously stored in the muscle cells. Rapid enzymatic breakdown of the glycogen to pyruvic acid and lactic acid liberates energy that is used to convert ADP to ATP; the ATP can then be used directly to energize additional muscle contraction and also to re-form the stores of phosphocreatine.
The importance of this glycolysis mechanism is twofold. First, the glycolytic reactions can occur even in the absence of oxygen, so muscle contraction can be sustained for many seconds and sometimes up to more than a minute, even when oxygen delivery from the blood is not available. Second, the rate of formation of ATP by the glycolytic process is about 2.5 times as rapid as ATP formation in response to cellular foodstuffs reacting with oxygen. However, so many end products of glycolysis accumulate in the muscle cells that glycolysis also loses its capability to sustain maximum muscle contraction after about 1 minute.
The third and final source of energy is oxidative metabolism, which means combining oxygen with the end products of glycolysis and with various other cellular foodstuffs to liberate ATP. More than 95 percent of all energy used by the muscles for sustained, long-term contraction is derived from oxidative metabolism. The foodstuffs that are consumed are carbohydrates, fats, and protein. For extremely long-term maximal muscle activity—over a period of many hours—by far the greatest proportion of energy comes from fats, but for periods of 2 to 4 hours, as much as one half of the energy can come from stored carbohydrates.
