1. The Muscles

2. Muscular System At this station you will:
Learn the 2 main functions of the muscular system.
Learn the main parts of the muscular system.
Learn how muscles work.
Use the arrow keys of the Enter key to advance through each slide.

3. Get Thinking!! There are about 600 muscles in the human body.
Flex your bicep--make a muscle.
Extend your arm.
Muscles work in pairs. As one muscle shortens the other lengthens.

4. Get the Facts…Muscles Use the following slides.
Record the answers to the following questions on your data sheet:
What are the functions of the Muscular System?
What are voluntary and involuntary muscles ?
What are the three major types of muscle tissue?

5. Muscular System
A rabbit becomes still when it senses danger. The rabbit sits so still that it doesn’t seem to move a muscle. Could you sit without moving any muscles? Saliva builds up in your mouth. You swallow. You need to breathe. Your chest expands to let air in. All of these actions involve muscles. It is impossible to sit absolutely still without muscle movement.
There are about 600 muscles in your body. Muscles have many functions. For example, they keep your heart beating, pull your mouth into a smile, and move the bones of your skeleton. The girl doing karate uses many of her muscles to move her arms, legs, hands, feet, and head. Other muscles expand and contract her chest and allow her to breathe.
Involuntary muscles are responsible for such essential activities as breathing and digesting food.
Voluntary muscles are responsible for controlling movement and actions such as turning a page in a book or smiling.
Your body has three types of muscle tissue—skeletal muscle, smooth muscle, and cardiac muscle. Some of these muscle tissues are involuntary, and some are voluntary.
Press enter to continue and get the facts.

6. Three Types of Muscles
Skeletal muscles
Smooth muscles
Cardiac muscles

7. Skeletal Muscles
Every time you walk across a room, you are using skeletal muscles. Skeletal muscles are attached to the bones of your skeleton and provide the force that moves your bones. At each end of a skeletal muscle is a tendon. A tendon is a strong connective tissue that attaches muscle to bone. Skeletal muscle cells appear banded, or striated. For this reason, skeletal muscle is sometimes called striated muscle (stry ay tid) .
Because you have conscious control of skeletal muscles, they are classified as voluntary muscles.
One characteristic of skeletal muscles is that they react very quickly. However, they also tire quickly. By the end of a race, a swimmer’s muscles are tired and need a rest.

8. Smooth Muscles
The inside of many internal organs, such as the stomach and blood vessels, contain smooth muscles. Smooth muscles are involuntary muscles, which are not under your conscious control. They work automatically to control certain movements inside your body, such as those involved in digestion. For example, as the smooth muscles of your stomach contract, they produce a churning action. The churning mixes the food with chemicals, and helps to digest the food.
Unlike skeletal muscles, smooth muscle cells are not striated. Smooth muscles behave differently than skeletal muscles, too. Smooth muscles react more slowly and tire more slowly.

9. Cardiac Muscle
The tissue called cardiac muscle is found only in your heart. Cardiac muscle has some characteristics in common with both smooth muscle and skeletal muscle. Like smooth muscle, cardiac muscle is involuntary. Like skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle cells are striated. However, unlike skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle does not get tired. It can contract repeatedly. You call those repeated contractions heartbeats.

10. Working Together Muscles work in pairs. Muscles can only contract.
One contracts while the
other relaxes.

11. Working Together…Teamwork
Because muscles can only contract, or shorten, they must work in pairs. To bend the arm at the elbow, the biceps contracts while the triceps returns to its original length.
First, the biceps muscle on the front of the upper arm contracts to bend the elbow, lifting the forearm and hand. As the biceps contracts, the triceps on the back of the upper arm relaxes and returns to its original length. Then, to straighten the elbow, the triceps muscle contracts. As the triceps contracts to extend the arm, the biceps relaxes and returns to its original length.
Another example of muscles that work in pairs are those in your thigh that bend and straighten the knee joint allowing you to bend your leg.

12. Get a Grip Try This Activity
Are skeletal muscles at work when you’re not moving?
Hold a craft stick in front of you, parallel to a table top. Do not touch the table.
Have a partner place a bent pipe cleaner on the stirrer.
Raise the stick until the “legs” of the bent pipe cleaner just touch the table. The “head” of the bent pipe cleaner should rest on the stick.
Hold the stick steady for 20 seconds. Observe what happens to the bent pipe cleaner. Record your observations on your data sheet.
Grip the stick tighter and repeat Step 4. Record your observations.
Inferring: Are the skeletal muscles in your hand at work when you hold your hand still? Explain.

13. More to explore…if you have time
(watch a movie about muscles)
(how to grow your muscles)

14. Clean Up the Station Reset the station’s supplies.
Go back to the first slide so the next group can begin.
Back to Beginning

15. How Does Your Body Measure Up?
Dr. Jeanine Haistings
Dr. Alison Wenhart
William Jewell College