BIOL 241 Chapter Notes - Chapter 37: Sliding Filament Theory, Sarcomere, Skeletal Muscle
8 Jul 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Muscles use chemical energy to produce force and movement. Muscles are composed of elongated cells called muscle bers. Muscle bers use atp generated through cellular respiration (chapter 6) to generate force and change length during a contraction. This conversion of chemical energy into muscle work underlies much of the energy cost of animal movement discussed in chapter 40. A force is a push or pull by one object interacting with another object. The forces generated by skeletal muscles, for example, act as pulling forces at speci c sites of the skeleton. The work performed by a muscle is equal to force times length change. For example, work is increased when either the force produced or the distance the skeleton is moved increases. Similarly, a muscle that produces a pulling force twice as much as another muscle but moves the skeletal segment only half the distance does the same work as that other muscle.
