Unit 7 Reflection

In this unit, we learned about all of the muscles in our body. We first learned different terms and joint movements. These were interesting and a little easy for me to remember because i learned all of these terms last year when i took Sports Medicine. Next we learned about the muscular system. We learned that there are many properties of muscle tissues. An example of one is excitability which was the ability to receive and respond to stimuli. We also learned about the different classification of muscles and how to distinguish which muscles are which. Something that i struggled a lot with was labeling the muscles on the body. There were so many of them that sounded alike so it was a little bit confusing. One of the last things we did in this unit was learn about different performance enhancements. This was my favorite thing that we learned in this unit because it was cool to see the effects that different enhancements had on your body. For example, I learned that caffeine has many risks to it which is bad for me because i drink it almost everyday. Caffeine can cause cramping, dehydration, and can suppress your appetite. Now that I know this, I will try to drink it less often. Some labs and activities we did in this unit was the chicken muscle dissection and the performance enhancement advertisement. The chicken dissection was really fun but a little confusing because it was hard to identify all the muscles. The advertisement was fun because i enjoyed the lecture and it was cool to learn about what anabolic steroids can do to you. I learned from this activity that for males, it can cause reduced sperm count and it can stop their growth. For females, this can cause male like facial hair and also stop. 

Anabolic Steroids Slide

In this lesson we learned about different performance enhancements and how some of them are actually very unhealthy for you. An example of one performance enhancement is anabolic steroid which is the one I did for my advertisement. I learned that this enhancement is used to mainly increase your muscle mass. There are multiple negative affect to it which differ for both men and women. For men, this can lead to infertility, breast development, shrinking of testicles, and reduced sperm count. As for women, this can lead to male type body hair, breast shrinkage, deepening of voice, and problems with women menstrual cycle.

Chicken Dissection Analysis

pectoralis major

pectoralis minor

trapezius

latissimus dorsi

deltoid

biceps brachii

triceps humerals

flexor carpi ulnaris

brachioradialis

satorius

tensor fasciae latae

biceps femoris

semimembranosus

semitendinosus

quadriceps femoris

gastrocnemius

peroneus longus

tibialis anterior

In this lab, we dissected a raw chicken and tried to look for all of its muscles and identified them. The muscles, tendons and bones allow the chicken to move in different way. When we cut the skin of the chicken, we found the pectorals major and then the minor. These are ht muscles on the breast that help the chicken stand upright. The trapezius and lattisimus doors were both on the back of the chicken. These allow the shoulders to move around. When we removed a chicken wing, we found the brachioradialis and the flexor carpi ulnas. These allow the arms to move and retract. Then, we looked at the chicken thigh. We found the satorius, the biceps femoris, and the semimembranosus. These allow the legs to move and allow the chicken to walk. Then we removed the skin from the drumstick of the drumstick. We found the gastrocnemius, peroneous longus and tibialis anterior. They allow the leg to bend and flex and maintain the balance the chicken needs. On the thigh, we also found the quadriceps femoris, and medialis which allows the leg to also flex and bend. In the end, the lab was actually very fun and interesting to learn.

What happens when you stretch?

"when you stretch the muscle fiber is pulled out to its full length sarcomere by sarcomere..."
I chose this quote because it was interesting to find out that is what happens when you stretch and the muscle fibers work like this by itself.
"When muscles contract they produce tension at the point where the muscle is connected to the tendon, where the golgi tendon organ is located"
This is interesting because i found out that this is possibly due to stretch reflex and i just learned something new.
"When the muscle is stretched, so is the muscle spindle"
I chose this quote because i didn't know that the muscle goes through so much when it is stretched and there are other factors that are getting contracted as well.
Relate and Review
The stretching of a muscle fiber begins with the sarcomere. When you stretch, the muscle fiber is pulled out to its full length sarcomere by sarcomere. There are two kinds of muscle fibers, intrafusal muscle fibers and extrafusal muscle fibers. When muscles contract they produce tension at the point where the muscle is connected to the tendon, where the golgi tendon organ is located. It is easier to stretch a muscle that is relaxed than when contracted. The stretch reflex has both a dynamic component and a static one.