How does muscle effort convert into force/Joules applied? What are the specs of muscles? An example of "specs" would be:
Muscle:
0<=battery<=100
Each second: increase battery by one if possible
At will: Decrease battery by one to apply one newton for one second
I am wondering because I was trying to optimize things like my morning bike ride across the park, questions like whether I should try to maximize my speed for the times when I'm going uphill, so gravity doesn't pull me backward for so long; or whether it is an inefficient move to walk instead of standing on the escalator because it could have carried me up instead, leaving more energy for the minutes of afterward walking.
Yes, yes, wasted thinking time, but my mind keeps wandering there on my way to places and its frustrating not knowing the math behind it.
What are the specs of muscles?
There are books and papers on the physiology of exercise, in particular on how muscles use energy in different regimes. For a basic intro check Crossfit, for more details you can look at e.g. Body By Science.
trying to optimize
What are you trying to optimize for?
This is a thread where people can ask questions that they would ordinarily feel embarrassed for not knowing the answer to. The previous thread is at close to 500 comments.