Obviously our muscles contracting allows movement, but how do they contract? Do cells in the muscle get pulled closer by a chemical process or something?
In: Biology
Ever saw a marionette? It has strings attached to its limbs, which move them up for example.
Imagine a very elaborate system of strings for moving up and a system for moving down etc.
Muscles are conected to the frame by tendons, those would be the strings. As to what moves the strings on a molecular level is a reaction between aktin and myosin (tiny ropes tied together, think the sliding rope knot) , which enables them to slide on each other.
The cells that make up your muscles are long and stretchy, like little rubber bands.
These cells form long strands, which exist in bundles, and those bundles are in groups which form a muscle.
Like rubber bands, they stretch. They can relax to get longer or contract to get shorter.
Chemical reactions in the cells cause them to either relax or contract, by themselves they’re weak and could tear easily, but because they’re bound together in large bundles, they’re stronger and tougher, like a group of people in tug-of-war vs a single person.
The muscles connect to tendons, that connect to bone, anchoring them together so that when the muscle moves, the bone moves with it.
So when your arm muscles move? They pull or relax the bone in your arm, causing it to move.
Not a biologist, but I’m pretty sure I remember that striated muscles (the ones you control) are made of something called a sliding-filament model. Thing of it like pages of two books being overlapped. They can only pull so much, but this process is repeated many times, so we can move more. People can work these muscles to either make the muscles longer for more stretching (like doing the splits) or to contract more aggressively (explosive power like a pull-up).
Muscles are connected to bones by something called tendons, close to the joints where bones are connected to each other by ligaments. When the muscle contracts, the tendon gets pulled, which pulls the bone, moving something like a limb.
idk i learned this a long time ago
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