this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
80 points (90.0% liked)
Showerthoughts
29723 readers
583 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- Avoid politics
- NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out
- Political posts often end up being circle jerks (not offering unique perspective) or enflaming (too much work for mods).
- Try c/politicaldiscussion, volunteer as a mod here, or start your own community.
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct-----
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Shouldn't that be "efficient"? They will adapt to the minimal required strength for whatever the standard is.
No, because it always uses more energy to move.
Tendon strength is more efficient, so that's what your body wants
He's saying overbuilt muscles are inefficient, so the body pars back to only what's necessary.
What? If a muscle was inefficient, it would use more resources than it needed to no matter what its task was. This would result in larger muscles than needed - simply because "why not?" Use the resources.
By being as small and effective as possible for their normal tasks, they are as efficient as possible. That's why if you stop working out - their normal tasks reduce - they get smaller and weaker.
Muscles rise to the lowest amount of strength possible. I'd argue that all parts of a body are as efficient as possible, because that's how life usually works.
Simply by existing, large muscles waste a lot of energy vs. having so called skinny strength. That's what the dude was referring to, and a well known fact that gaining muscle increases TDEE, so from the pov that many people work out to get jacked purely for aesthetical reasons, then muscles also are inefficient.
So from what context are we using the word "efficiency"?
Because from a muscle's view, it is as efficient as possible. It grows and atrophies based on what is required of it. This is my problem with the main post: muscles are inefficient.
They aren't, full stop. A muscle will be as efficient as possible - be as small and use as little energy as possible - to handle the regular tasks given.
If you are speaking from a holistic view of a human who decides what goals to set, whether it is useful to simply have large muscles for aesthetic reasons, then sure. Yeah. Big muscles burn more energy and aren't needed to survive. I'd still say that's not what efficiency is, but I'd concede there.
Energy consumption context. Not sure how that wasn't apparent.
Then muscles are as efficient as they can be. They use as little energy as they need. They require energy to do things, just like everything else in your body. But they will only be as big/strong as required, nothing more - which is, believe it or not - efficiency.
A pound of muscle requires many calories to maintain, more than anything else in your body, by weight.
Aside from fat. Or the brain. Or other organs
No, muscles require the most energy to maintain. Literally at rest, muscle is burning more than any other.
That's why the body sheds muscle readily if they aren't used, and why building muscle is so effective for general weight loss.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2980962/
Heart & kidneys > brain > liver > skeletal muscle > adipose muscle
Pound for pound. But they all are efficient, which still goes against the original thesis
Due to not wanting to move the goalposts, I'll cede regarding organs.
That said, I meant vs fat. I should have clarified. One does does does not build or shed more organs, so I thought that was clear, but I see I was not
Also said, I've seen the brain one contested quite a bit.
Again I cede to your source and acknowledge it, only clarifying I was comparing to non organ tissue.
Edit my meaning was a pound of fat, at rest, burns less and contributes less to TDEE than a point of muscle. Therefore muscle is less efficient, using more calories to continue existing per unit time.
Fair enough. And I'll give you the vs fat part. It was unfair for me to say anyway - what was in my head when I said it was that a pound of fat is considered worth 3500 kcal, which is more energy than most things in a body. It was a shit argument that mixed points.
Overall, I think my issue is just with the simple statement that "muscles are inefficient".
The way I interpreted that statement is that "muscles waste energy", since that's all the context I could get from those words. I see muscles as super efficient, just like anything else in the body in that they do as little as possible compared to what is demanded. I view that type of laziness as ultimate efficiency.
Through the rest of the thread I got little additional context, so I kept on keeping on.
I still think the op of this thread didn't get his point across very well
Yeah it's a funny thing.
Efficiency has multiple meanings for a living body, and a goal. (Is the goal to survive, is the goal to be strong, etc)
Cheers bud
The body also sheds brain cells if you don’t get enough exercise.
Here is a starting point to read on this topic:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/metabolism/art-20046508
Edit and a slightly more editorial article
https://www.webmd.com/obesity/features/8-ways-to-burn-calories-and-fight-fat
Edit here is one that focuses on metrics of measurement, such as TDEE
https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/metabolismcontroversy.html