“Body composition.

One of the most important aspects that we must know is the concept of body composition,
which allows quantifying the main components of the body such as muscle, fat, and bone.

We can classify body fat into two types: essential fat and fat deposit. Essential fat is
necessary for the normal functioning of the body. This is located mainly in the heart, lungs,
liver, spleen, kidneys, intestines, muscles, bone marrow and tissues of the central nervous
system. Essential fat levels are approximately 10-13% in women and 2-5% in men.
Deposit fat accumulates in adipose tissue, is subcutaneous (under the skin) and protects
different internal organs. It represents 15% of the body weight in women and 12% in men.
The percentages may vary because they are subject to the dietary decisions and physical
activity of each individual.

There are various methods to assess and check body composition such as chemical
analysis, hydrostatic weighing, anthropometric measurements (of the most used) and
other procedures that usually include height and weight. All of them vary in effectiveness
but serve to have more or less an idea of the current values of body composition.

On the other hand, we have the muscles, which provide movement, support, and structure
to the body. There are three types, which are smooth muscle ( muscle tissue in the walls
of internal organs such as the stomach and intestines, presents involuntary contractions ),
cardiac ( found only in the walls of the heart and their contractions are involuntary as in
smooth muscle ) and skeletal muscle ( muscle tissue that is attached to the bones, their
contractions are voluntary ). To deepen the hypertrophy issue, we will focus on skeletal
muscle.

The muscles have different functional characteristics to carry out their purposes, including
Strength, Power, and Performance, and for this, they use the different energy systems that
were described above.

Strength is the physical ability to perform a job or movement, and the ability to create
muscular tension. There are several classifications of this one, but for not diverting the
subject, the terms of absolute and relative force should be handled. Absolute force is the
maximum force that can be exerted when moving or moving an external load, usually, the
more bodyweight is possessed, the greater the absolute strength of the athlete, as when
moving a bar. Relative force is what is applied concerning the movement of the
bodyweight. The less bodyweight you have, the greater the performance of the muscles
and the greater the relative strength, such as when doing a pushup. It should also be
noted that the support force is approximately 40% greater than the contraction force in the
muscles, which is useful when applying certain training techniques.

The power is measured in terms of total work in a given time and takes into account the
load that moves, the distance that the load moves and the time it takes to move it. We can
also consider it as the speed with which a muscular contraction is performed to move a
load.

Muscle performance is the result of measuring the working capacity of muscles and
depends on glycogen (energy) to a greater extent and normal circumstances.

You may be wondering how does this information help you in your journey? Well, it's
important to know what is your body made of if you're trying to change it, to begin with.
Whether the goal you're trying to achieve is fat loss or add some muscle mass to your
body, managing these concepts and the factors that come into play when you're changing
your body will create a solid base of knowledge that you will use in later stages of your
endeavor, like when you need to target a certain type of muscle fiber with heavy loads to
make it grow, or knowing why fat is storing more in certain places. All you learn will
eventually come in handy.
Well, that's it for today, I hope you all learned something new with this article and that it
may help you understand a little bit better your physique transformation journey, or just
have a good time reading it. There are more important components in the human body, but
for the purposes of changing one's health and appearance, muscle and fat are the main
components we touched on today.

Best regards,
Rich.