The Muscular System

● The nervous system sends messages to the muscular system, telling when &
how to contract muscles

Function
● Muscles work against gravity to keep our bodies upright
○ Impulses sent from the nervous system to the muscular cause small and
large movements
○ Deep within muscles are muscle spindles: muscle cells wrapped in nerve
fibers
■ Spindles send messages to the brain through the spinal cord to
communicate with muscles
● Protection
○ Attaching to the projection of the bones and the skin to provide a
cushioning or shield
○ Muscles work with layers of connective tissue to provide an internal
bubble wrap
● Thermostat
○ Heat=byproduct of muscle contraction
○ When you are warm, your muscles relax, the thermoregulatory system is
activated, and you start to sweat
● Keeps blood pumping
○ Cardiac muscle makes up the heart and creates enough force to pump
blood throughout the body
○ Between each contraction of the heat, it relaxes (albeit) so it can fill up
with blood
○ If the heart is not filled with blood, oxygenated blood, and nutrients
cannot be delivered
● Digesting nutrients & getting rid of waste
○ Jaw muscles break up food
○ The digestive tract is lined with smooth muscles that use a wavelike
motion to push food & liquids through
○ Once food is digested, the muscles in the stomach push food to the
rectum for removal
Types of Muscle Contractions
● Involuntary muscle contraction
○ Unconscious contraction of the muscles in the nervous system
○ Involuntary contractions lead to cardiac & smooth muscles
● Voluntary muscle contractions
○ A conscious effort to contract a certain muscle
Types of Muscles
● Skeletal muscles
○ Like fibers at the cellular level
○ Have multiple long cylinders that can run the entire length of the
muscle
■ Surrounded by connective tissue,
which acts as insulation or wires
○ Have multiple nuclei
○ Long stripes or striations, that are made
of muscle cells
○ Cover the skeleton & give the body
shape
○ Also found in visceral organs
■ Visceral organs: “deep inside” ex
stomach and intestines
○ Most skeletal muscles are attached to bones by tendons
○ Control movement of bones, produce heat, maintain posture
○ Have a voluntary contraction
● Cardiac muscle
○ Have striations
○ Single nucleus
○ Muscle fibers are cylindrical & branch-like
○ Fibers interlock like puzzle pieces, which
allow for a quick message transmission
○ Have slow, rhythmic contractions
○ Found in the wall of the heart & help pump
blood
○ Involuntary contractions controlled by the nervous and endocrine
systems
 ● Smooth muscle
○ Fusiform muscle fibers (cells); meaning they are thick in the middle &
taper at the ends
○ Fibers are to create sheets of tissue
○ NOT striated
○ Have a single nucleus
○ Found in the walls of organs & structures
○ Involuntary muscles
○ Push food through the intestines and mix fluids
in the stomach with gastric juices to break down
food
○ Smooth muscle can hold a contraction longer than skeletal muscles
○ Controlled by mechanisms in the nervous and endocrine systems

The Sliding Filament Theory

Key vocabulary Definition

Motor neurons - Skeletal muscles are stimulated by motor neurons

- Nerve cells with branches that attach to each myofiber
to form a motor unit
- Attach at points called the neuromuscular junction

Neuromuscular - Attacking point of the myofiber to the motor neuron

junction - Motor neurons do not touch the myofiber; they sit in
the cell membrane in the synaptic gap with a
neurotransmitter called acetylcholine

Neurotransmitter - Neurotransmitters are chemical assistants in the

transmission of messages
- Helps the message from the motor neuron to the
myofiber

Motor units - Group of motor neurons and myofiber

- Some units contain hundreds of fibers, others contain
10
- All motor units act synchronously and force all the
muscle fibers to contract simultaneously
- All get the message to stop at the same time
Acetylcholinesterase - Enzyme
- Works to ensure the impulse sent to the myofiber
results in one contraction

● Myofibrils: small fibrils inside fiber

○ It is composed of thick and thin filaments called myofilaments
■ Thick filaments: A bands
● Made of myosin
■ Thin filaments: I bands
● Made up of mostly actin
○ I band overlaps the edges of the A band, making these areas appear
darker
■ H band represents the area where thick filaments are not
overlapped
■ The thin dark line in the center of the I band is the Z line
● If you measure from Z line to Z line, there is a repeating
pattern
■ Subunits from Z to Z are called sarcomeres & play a large role in
muscle contraction
 ● When the muscle contracts, the distance between Z bands shortens
● Decreases in length when muscle relaxes

Stages of The Sliding Filament Theory

● Stage 1
○ ATP binds to an arm-like structure, called a head in the myosin within in
thick filaments
■ Raises it to a higher energy state
○ Calcium ions bind to troponin
■ This exposes the binding sites on the actin of the thin filaments
● Stage 2
○ The high energy myosin head binds to the exposed actin binding site
■ Connection is called a cross-bridge
● Stage 3
○ The myosin head bends & the ATP is converted to ADP & phosphate
○ As energy is released the actin filaments are pulled together
○ The thin filaments are shortened which causes the muscle to contract
● Stage 4
○ A new ATP molecule attaches to the myosin head head, allowing the
cross-bridge to detach from the actin
○ ATP is broken down into ADP & phosphate, allowing the cross-bridge to
return to its original position
Key ideas
- Muscle tissue is made up of muscle fibers
- Muscle fiber are “muscle cells”
- 3 type of muscle tissue
- Cardiac
- Muscle fibers are branches & striated
- One nucleus per fiber
- Contract in an organized, wave-like pattern
- involuntary
- Smooth
- No striations
- One nucleus per fiber
- Spindle shaped (wide in the middle and taper)
- Found in digestive system, arteries & veins, etc
- involuntary
- Skeletal
 - Voluntary
- Striped,striated
- Fibers are long cylinders
- Multinucleated
- Skeletal muscles
- Inside fibers are myofibrils, which are long cylinders
- Each myofibril has sections that repeat called sarcomeres
- Sarcomere has a protein called actin
- Actin makes up thin filaments
- Sarcomere has protein called myosin, which makes up thick filaments
- Sarcomere must shorten for muscle
to contract
- Thin & thick filaments slide past one
another
- When sarcomere contracts, the thin
filaments will be pulled by the thick
filaments towards the center
- Thick and thin filaments overlap
- Z lines will be moved closer
together
- Myosin head binds to ATP
The Mechanism of Muscle Contraction: Sarcomeres, Action Potential, and the N…
Sliding Filament Theory Of Muscle Contraction Explained
The Names of Muscles
● ~40 % of the human body is muscle tissue
● 650 named muscles

Muscle Size Vocabulary

● Major = large
● Maximus = largest
● Medius = midsize
● Minor = small
● Minimus = smallest
● Longus = long
● Brevis = short
● Latissimus = very wide
● Longissmus = very long
● Magus = very large
● Vastus = vast or huge

Muscle Location Vocabulary

● Many muscles are based on location & the bones around them
○ Ex: tibialis (muscle in the leg, the tibia is bone in the lower leg)
○ Anatomical direction terms
Muscle Shape
● Shape of the muscle itself is described
○ Ex: deltoid is a muscle in the upper arm named after its “deltoid” which
means triangular
○ Trapezius is named after the trapezoid shape
○ Serratus means notched
○ Piriformis means wedge shaped
○ Quad means four so quadratus refers to the four sides of a square
○ Lumbrical means worm-like

Muscle Fiber Direction

● Striations and orientation can be used to name muscles
● Oblique - runs diagonally, or at an angle to the midline
● Rectus - runs straight or parallel to the midline
● Transverse means across
● Circular - spiral
Origin & Intersection
● Origin = immovable end of the muscle
○ Attached to a relatively immovable bone
● Intersection point = the end that is attached to a movable bobe
● When the muscle contracts the intersection point is pulled towards its point of
origin
○ Sternocleidomastoid - has two origin sites: sternum & clavicle, and two
intersection points

Names of Origins or Divisions

● Triceps brachii has three points of origin, hence the “tri”
● Two heads = biceps
● Four heads = quadriceps

Position of the Muscle in Relation to the Bone

● Supra or superior = above or over

● Infra = below or beneath
● Sub = below or under
● Lateralis = the side of the bone
● Medialis = the middle of the bone
● Inter = between or among
● External = outer
● Inferior = underneath
● Dorsi = the back
● Anterior = in front of

The Action Produced by the Muscle

● Extensor = extends
● Flexion = bend
● Extension = stretch out
● Adduction toward
● Abduction = away
● Pronation = bent forward
● Supination = lying of the back