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Re: Re: Me and my 3 sisters

I wish you the best of luck. One of my sisters has the largest calves I have ever seen on a woman who doesn't weightlift professionally. She is embarrassed by them, but I think its great.

One of her doctor's told her that if she is going to have a muscle disease this is the one to get. It definitely does keep life interesting. Outside of the fatigue and occasional embarrassment, I often enjoy the unique perspective this difference has awarded me.

After I wrote this email I read a reply Jan had made to someone about muscle tearing. I've posted it below.

"Yes, you are probably actually tearing the muscles. In weight lifting it's called ripping but it's usually just microtears that heal, and as they heal the muscle enlarges to adapt to a new stress level.

Because movement for us can be equivalent to quite strenuous isometric exercises we can get these microtears in our muscles just by walking or climbing stairs when we're stiff.

A normal person would increase Type IIB fibers in the muscle and motor units would increase to help with the "action potential" of the muscle. However we have a defect in making that type of fiber and muscle biopsies show them as atrophied or non-existent.

So we never truly adapt to exercise or even our normal movements when we're stiff. This tearing of the muscle is what often accounts for our higher levels of CPK, an enzyme that shows up when muscle cells are breaking down or leaking.

It's frustrating to always get sore and stiff from workouts, but many people with MC enjoy the buff look of hypertrophied muscles without ever having to go to the gym :-)"