It is essential for our quality of life to have healthy muscles. Tragically, the loss of even a single protein can have dramatic effects on muscle functioning and quality of life. This book is about skeletal muscles, their physiological complexity and molecular functioning in health and disease. The range of topics varies from the fascinating events at the level of the cross-bridges, the aging process of skeletal muscles, ischemia-reperfusion, inflammatory myopathies and mitochondrial function, muscular dystrophy and the regulation of skeletal muscle mass in health and disease. This book is written by internationally acclaimed researchers and expert research groups and provides state of the art understanding of the plasticity of skeletal muscle, information that is vital for health professionals who deal with diverse chronic disease conditions.