The Muscular System

What is the muscular system? You probably knew that the Muscular System moves the bones to create movement in the body. It has several lesser known but equally important jobs. When muscles contract blood is squeezed through blood vessels. The diaphragm is a muscle that helps inflate the lungs so you can breathe. It also protects your vital organs. It is made up of three types of muscles: skeletal, smooth cardiac muscles. How Your Muscles Work What does it mean for a muscle to be voluntary? The heart and organs in the digestive system are involuntary muscles, meaning the body can carry out those muscle actions WITHOUT our knowledge and control. Why is it probably a good thing that we don't regulate our heart muscle using our conscious thought? Three Types of Muscle Skeletal Muscle1) Now, let's talk about the kind of muscle you think of when we say "muscle" — the ones that show how strong you are and let you boot a soccer ball into the goal. These are your skeletal muscles — sometimes called striated (say: STRY-ay-tud) muscle because the light and dark parts of the muscle fibers make them look striped (striated is a fancy word meaning striped).2) Skeletal muscles are voluntary muscles, which means you can control what they do. Your leg won't bend to kick the soccer ball unless you want it to. These muscles help to make up themusculoskeletal(say: mus-kyuh-low-SKEL-uh-tul)system— the combination of your muscles and your skeleton, or bones.3) Together, the skeletal muscles work with your bones to give your body power and strength. In most cases, a skeletal muscle is attached to one end of a bone by a tendon. It stretches all the way across a joint (the place where two bones meet) and then attaches again to another bone.4) Skeletal muscles are held to the bones with the help oftendons(say: TEN-dunz). Tendons are cords made of tough tissue, and they work as special connector pieces between bone and muscle. The tendons are attached so well that when you contract one of your muscles, the tendon and bone move along with it.5) Skeletal muscles come in many different sizes and shapes to allow them to do many types of jobs. Some of your biggest and most powerful muscles are in your back, near your spine. These muscles help keep you upright and standing tall.6) They also give your body the power it needs to lift and push things. Muscles in your neck and the top part of your back aren't as large, but they are capable of some pretty amazing things: Try rotating your head around, back and forth, and up and down to feel the power of the muscles in your neck. These muscles also hold your head high. Write a 6 sentence summary of what you learned from the skeletal muscle section. Write one sentence per section.(6 sections=6 sentences) Smooth MusclesFill in the blanks below. When you click on a blank a word bank will open up. Simply click on the word you want to insert. Smooth muscles — sometimes also called involuntary muscles — are usually in sheets, or layers, with one layer of muscle behind the other. You can't control this type of muscle. Your brain and body tell these muscles what to do without you even thinking about it. But smooth muscles are at work all over your body. In your stomach and digestive system, they contract (tighten up) and relax to allow food to make its journey through the body. Smooth muscles are also found in your bladder. When they're relaxed, they allow you to hold in urine (pee) until you can get to the bathroom. A Hearty MuscleThe muscle that makes up the heart is called cardiac muscle. It is also known as themyocardium(say: my-uh-KAR-dee-um). The thick muscles of the heart contract to pumpbloodout and then relax to let blood back in after it has circulated through the body.Just like smooth muscle, cardiac muscle works all by itself with no help from you. A special group of cells within the heart are known as the pacemaker of the heart because it controls the heartbeat.Which answer below best describes the function of the heart muscle. It makes blood cells It contracts and relaxes to move blood through the heart To help you love people Classifying Muscles Complete the chart by clicking on the text boxes to reveal and select a word bank from the word bank. Muscle Type Voluntary or Involuntary? Example (for skeletal what is an example of movement under your conscious control?) Skeletal voluntary picking up a pencil Smooth involuntary digestive system Cardiac involuntary heart Using the diagram above, complete the following. A word bank is provided below. Click on a pulsating dot to open a text box. Deltoids will NOT be used, as it is incorrect in the answer bank (not my answer bank!). This is creating confusion in grading as some students are spelling it correctly and it is getting marked wrong. gastrocnemius Quadriceps sartorius external obliques biceps triceps pectorals Rectus Abdominus brachioradialis