How The Muscular System Enables Movement For The Body

The anatomy and physiology of the human body explains that muscles are attached to the skeleton. They work like hinges or levers to pull or move particular joints when a muscle contracts, pulling the joint in the direction it is designed to move. Parts of muscles move antagonistically, that is, when one contracts, its opposite member relaxes to allow movement. Muscles can become slack, making movement slower and more difficult.

This activity is the critical driving force of muscle contraction. The stream of action potentials along the muscle fiber surface is terminated as Acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction is broken down by acetyl cholinesterase. The release of Calcium ions is ceased. The action of the myosin molecule heads is obstructed because of the change in the configuration of troponin and tropomyosin due to the absence of calcium ions. This will eventually cause the contraction to be ceased. Together with these physical processes, an external stretching force such as gravity pulls the muscle back to its normal length.

skeleton, which provides the pulling power for us to move around. The main job of the muscular

Smooth muscle contraction occurs when calcium is present in the smooth muscle cell and binds onto calmodulin to activate myosin light chain kinase (Wilson et al., 2002). Phosphorylation of myosin light chains result in myosin ATPase activity thus cross-bridge cycling occurs causing the muscle to contract (Horowitz et al., 1996). There are two known models of excitation and contraction in smooth muscle, electromechanical coupling (EMC) and pharmomechanical coupling

How is contraction ended? Ach is released and binds to receptors on the motor end plate, then an action potential is produced which releases Ca+. The Ca+ binds to troponin, then myosin binds to actin to form crossbridges. The myosin pulls the actin then releases from actin and ADP is bound to the myosin.

As a result of the contractions in the Muscle- Skeletal Longitudinal Section cells and the Muscle- Skeletal Cross Section cells, it allows your muscle to be able to contract in response to nerve stimuli. This means that the movements of most of these muscles are not involuntary, you can control them. Therefore, once the stimulation stops, the muscles relax.

Antagonistic Pairs are a pair of muscles working together to allow coordinated movement of the skeletal joints. Muscles can only exert a force and do work by contracting. An example is the antagonistic pair of muscles used in bending and straightening the arm. To bend the arm requires the biceps to contract, while the triceps relax. If the arm is to be straightened, the reverse happens. The individual components of antagonistic pairs can be classified into extensors and

Shoulder flexion/extension; Elbow flexion and extension; Use of the lower and upper back. Muscles involved include the latissimus dorsi, rhomboids, trapezius, deltoids and the pectorals.

Tendon – When the muscles contract it pulls the tendon that then pulls on the bones to make us move our arms and legs

The Purpose of this exercise is to understand how muscle twitch, contract and react to different activities.

The human muscular system is made up of over 600 connecting muscles. All of the muscles work together in sync to make your body move in inumerable different ways.

how the sections move during a contraction. The Z line is in the middle of the I bands

Antagonist- The antagonist is the other muscle movement one that is found in the pair. The antagonist is the opposite of the agonist, the antagonist is usually relaxed during movements such as the bicep curl however the antagonist isn't always relaxed as when the weight is very heavy the antagonist triceps muscle will produce

Agonist muscles are the main muscles responsible for isotonic contractions; as they are predominantly responsible for producing a specific movement they are also referred to as “prime movers”. Antagonist muscles control a movement and also return limbs back to the original position. If a movement is performed in reverse the antagonist and agonist muscle switch roles, therefore one muscle can be both an agonist and an antagonist depending on

Flexion - is the bending of a joint where the bones on either side of joint are brought together, decreasing the angle between bones.