Muscles?

[Apples9847]

Do you have any tricks or tips on how to study for the lecture exam on muscles? My teacher covered the whole chapter in 2 class periods and I'm freaking out. My test is Tuesday. I need to know the microscopic anatomy of muscles and muscle contraction.

[Jasmine914]

I know this may sound crazy, but my son's pediatrician told me to eat peanut butter while studying. Its supposed to help with memory. I've done and I must say it does work. Also use flash cards and don't continue to study anything you already know because once you know it you wont forget it.

[Saysfaa]

Teach it. If you don't have anyone available or willing to be taught then assume you have been hired to tutor someone, or been invited to be a guest speaker on this subject.

In the process of sorting through the information, organizing it, figuring out how to explain the concepts to someone who doesn't have the vocabulary (or someone who does, if you have the vocabulary down), figuring out how to explain how the various concepts fit together, figuring out how to demonstrate with manipulatives or visual aids, figuring out what you would put on a test so that you could tell if the student understood the key vocabulary and concepts.... you will learn the material.

[doxielover304]

Study, study, study.... For me, muscles were a tad boring to learn. We had to learn all the muscles in the body and it was pretty easy but I still had to study. I agree with the comment above, teach someone what you know. And also, something that helped me was to have a group that I studied with. Good luck.

[PalmHarborMom]

If you are talking about learning the Sliding Filament Theory.... You Tube is a great resource for finding new and different ways to learn concepts that are hard to visualize in a lecture. But if you are talking about being able to identify what muscles are where on the body... That is just LOTS of studying pictures. I also used pictures to be able to identify the different muscle types under a microscope.

I wish there was a easy way to learn muscles... Sad was the day that I found out that there wasn't.

[queserasera, RN]

For the anatomy I had to relate everything from gross to microscopic in a few paragraphs.

A whole muscle is surrounded by perimysium and is made up of muscle fascicles. Muscle Fascicles are surrounded by perimysium and made up of muscle fibers/cells. Muscle fibers/cells are surrounded by endomysium and then the cell membrane thats deeper is called the sarcolemma.Muscle cells also are covered by a sarcolemic reticulum which store calcium and t-tubules which transport calcium. The muscle cells are made up of myofibrils and other cellular components (mitochondria, nucleus etc). Myofibrils are made up of actin(thin strands), Myosin (thick strands) and elastin. Actin, Myosin and Elastin are arranged in zones (a, h, i) and each group of zones makes up a sarcomere that are arranged in series to complete the length of the muscle cell.

[hodgieRN]

Best thing to do is to break everything up into different systems. If you are learning simple anatomy, study only the muscles to leg, then the pelvis, or the forearm, or the abdomen.

Get familiar with the terms. Figure out what is anterior, posterior, lateral, and medial. Break the names into separate words. Superior rectus, medial oblique, and inferior rectus all give clues to their location.

Try not to get thrown off by the Road Runner terms. Rectus abdominis and carpi radialis longus are all confusing. Look at the base of each word. Again, most of them give clues. Abdominis refers to the abdomen; carpi refers to the wrist, as in carpal (like carpal tunnel); cervicis means neck, as in cervical. Latissimus means widest; longgissimus means longest; maximus means larger.

The names also reflect the shape of the muscle. Deltoid:triangle, orbicularis:circle (as in orbit), rhomboideus:rhombus shaped, etc.

Basically, the terms describe the shape and location. Carpi radialis longus basically means long, wrist muscle near radial (bone).

There should be a table in your book that has a musle terminolgy box.

Now, if you are studying the cells of the muscle, break it down by systems. Look at the whole muscle, then a group of cells, then the cell, then the inside of the cell. Many cells as basically localized in bands. Know the layers of the bands and know the skeletal muscles vs smooth muscles. Also look the base term for these cells. Peri means around and myo, mys means muscle, so perimysium mean tissue around the muscle. Endo mean inside, so endomysium means inside muscle. Help this helps.

[NeoNatMom]

if you do well visually, I would make a drawing (more like a trace outline of a body) or print ones of dancers/acrobats or anyone the you can find pictures of doing specific motions but do it without color ink. use color pencils and color code where the muscle is and obviously the motion the person is doing will give its job. or you can do the same thing but do one picture with only extensions highlighted, and the flexing on the other. another good idea is to make simple flash cards with simple drawings of movements and test yourself with thos on which muscle(s) are performing the task. hope this helps cus I am insanely visual. It has yet to let me down cus I havent made a B yet good luck.