Skip to main content

Anatomy made easy(-ish), Part 1: Saggital view

Anatomy of the musculoskeletal system in itself is pretty straight forward. Muscle group/name, function, joints and location. Depending on the source you use, there could be between 650-800 skeletal muscles in the body. Now learning all these muscles by heart would be a drag. In this article we're going to look in to a system that'll make it a lot easier to remember the main muscle groups. Want to find out how you can easily categorize and derive the muscles function? Are you curious about anatomy but a lazy student? Read on.

So today we're going to talk about all the movements that can be perceived in the saggital view. The saggital view is where you stand perpendicular to a person (ie from the side).

We're going to look in to how to easily derive function from position. Now imagine a line going straight through the middle of someones body. And we'll lable the front, the anterior side and the back, the posterior side.
As a rule:
All the muscles in the front of the shoulder and hip will function as Anteflexors.
All the muscles in the back of the shoulder and hip will have a functions as Retroflexors.

All the muscles in front of the elbow will function as Flexors.
All the muscles in the back of the elbow will function as Extensors.
In the knee joint, this rule is vice versa.

All the muscles in the front of the ankle joint will Dorsiflex.
All the muscles in the back of the ankle joint will Plantar flex.

Easy enough right?
Now there's only two things you need to remember.
- The position of the muscle
- The joints it crosses

For instance:
The biceps muscle is at the anterior side of the body.
The biceps muscle crosses both the elbow and the shoulder joint.
Which movements can be found in the anterior part of the shoulder and elbow? Flexion of the elbow, anteflexion of the shoulder.

The Gastrocnemius is at the posterior side of the body.
It crosses both the knee joint and the ankle joint.
The functions of the Gastrocnemius are flexion of the knee and plantar flexion of the ankle.

By using this system we now either have to know: the function of the muscle and the position. Or the position of the muscle and the joints it crosses. This works for every muscle you have!
Also please note there is a lack of nuance here and there. A lot of muscles function across different planes of movement. We will be reviewing these in the coming articles!

Hopefully you found this helpful:)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Active and passive insufficiency and why it matters

Make a fist and squeeze your hand as hard as you can. Good! Now flex your wrist towards the palm side of your hand and try again. Now you probably failed to apply nearly as much force as in your first try. Why is that? In this article we'll explore the definition of passive and active insufficiencies of muscles. We're going to find out how muscles contract optimally, why regular incline bench press barely works the upper chest, how to target the individual heads of the bicep and how this all ties in to further optimise your exercise selection. Hope you enjoy! How do muscle's contract? To create an understanding of how muscle contractions become insufficient we need to know how they become sufficient first. A sufficient muscle contraction is a contraction where the myosin and actin filaments can comfortably slide over each other. This means that there is an optimal amount of distance the actin filaments can travel to facilitate an optimal contraction. On the opposite...
Post a Comment
Read more

Energy systems explained

So training in energy systems is quite an abstract concept. Most trainers are familiar with the aerobic, anaerobic lactic and alactic systems. But what links the systems and how do they work together? Are they always active at the same time or does your body pick and choose? And why is that if you walk your 3-4 flights of stairs everyday, you still feel out of breath when you reach your appartment? So a very important concept in explaining your energy systems is the use and recycling of ATP. ATP stands for Adenosine triphosphate. Tri being important pat in the name. Now when our cells want to create energy they do that by splitting of one phosphate group, leaving you with ADP, Adenosine DIphosphate. This leaves is with a problem because our Adenosine can't infinitely give away phosphate to create energy. So how does the body solve for this? The body has multiple methods of recycling ADP back to ATP. Let's explore this. So when your body needs glucose it attaches one of t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The VO2 max series. Part 1: The powerhouse of the cell

Everyone breathes the same air, at roughly the same pace. Provided you have healthy lungs you probably inhale just as much oxygen as the person next to you. And oxygen is the most important factor to facilitate enough energy for the body. So why is it that some people are fitter than others? Since the outside factors are roughly the same for everyone, how come some people have a much higher work capacity than others? In the  VO 2 max  series I'm going to explain those differences in physiology between people and by which rules you can improve them. In the fitness world it is a often talked about value. But what does the  VO 2 max  consist of? This is where Dr. Fick comes into play (amongst other important discoveries his surname also means "to fuck" in German). The Fick equation.  Now let's break this intimidating formula down. Q stands for cardiac output. This is the volume of blood that the heart pumps out every minute. Easy. Now the part of the for...
Post a Comment
Read more