Structural

Organization of
Skeletal Muscle
Lecture no. 2
 Motor Units

 Muscle fibers are organized into functional

groups of different sizes.

 Composed of a single motor neuron and all

fibers innervated by it, these groups are known
as motor units.
 The axon of each motor neuron subdivides many
times so that each individual fiber is supplied
with a motor end plate.
 Typically, there is only one end plate per fiber.
The fibers of a motor unit may be spread over a
several-centimeter area and be interspersed with
the fibers of other motor units.
 Motor units are typically confined to a single
muscle and are localized within that muscle.
 Most skeletal motor units in mammals are composed
of twitch-type cells that respond to a single stimulus
by developing tension in a twitch like fashion. The
tension in a twitch fiber following the stimulus of a
single nerve impulse rises to a peak value in less than
100 msec and then immediately declines.
 Not all human skeletal motor units are of the twitch
type.
 Motor units of the tonic type are found in the
oculomotor apparatus.
 These motor units require more than a single stimulus
before the initial development of tension.
 In the human body, however, motor units are
generally activated by a volley of nerve impulses.
When rapid, successive impulses activate a
 fiber already in tension, summation occurs and
tension is progressively elevated until a maximum
value for that fiber is reached.
 A fiber repetitively activated so that its maximum
tension level is maintained for a time is in tetanus.
 As tetanus is prolonged, fatigue causes a
 gradual decline in the level of tension produced.
 Summation Tetanus
Building in an additive fashion State of muscle producing sustained maximal
tension resulting from repetitive stimulation
 Fast-twitch fiber
 A fiber that reaches peak tension relatively quickly
 Slow-twitch fiber
 A fiber that reaches peak tension relatively slowly

 A high percentage of fast twitch fibers is advantageo

generating fast movements, and a high percentage o
twitch fibers is
 Beneficial for activities requiring endurance.
 Fiber types
 It takes fast twitch fibers only about one-seventh the
time required by slow twitch fibers to reach peak
tension
 This difference in time to peak tension is attributed to
higher concentrations of myosin-atpase in fast twitch
fibers.
 The fast twitch fibers are also larger in diameter than
slow twitch fibers.
 Because of these and other differences, fast twitch
fibers usually fatigue more quickly than do slow
 Skeletal muscle fiber characteristics
 Fiber architecture
 Another variable influencing muscle function is the
arrangement of fibers within a muscle.
 The orientations of fibers within a muscle and the
arrangements by which fibers attach to muscle tendons
vary considerably among the muscles of the human
body.
 These structural considerations affect the strength of
muscular contraction and the range of motion through
 Which a muscle group can move a body segment.
 The two umbrella categories of muscle fiber
 Parallel fiber

In a parallel fiber
The sartorius, rectus
arrangement, the fibers are
abdominis, and biceps
oriented largely in parallel
brachii have parallel fiber
with the longitudinal axis of
orientations.
the muscle.
 Pennate Fiber

A pennate fiber Each fiber in a pennate The tibialis posterior,

arrangement is one in muscle attaches to one or rectus femoris, and
which the fibers lie at an more tendons, some of deltoid muscles have
angle to the muscle’s which extend the entire pennate fiber
longitudinal axis. length of the Muscle. arrangements
 When tension is developed in a parallel-fibered
muscle, any shortening of the muscle is primarily the
result of the shortening of its fibers.
 When the fibers of a pennate muscle shorten, they
rotate about their tendon attachment or attachments,
progressively increasing the angle of pennation
 The greater the angle of pennation, the smaller the
amount of effective force actually transmitted to the
tendon or tendons to move the attached bones.
 Once the angle of pennation exceeds 60°, the amount of
effective force transferred to the tendon is less than one-
half of the force actually produced by the muscle fibers.
 Smaller pennation angle favors greater shortening
velocity for faster movement speeds
 Although pennation reduces the effective force generate
at a given level of fiber tension, this arrangement allow
the packing of more fibers than can be packed into
longitudinal muscle occupying equal space.
 Because pennate muscles contain more fibers per unit o
muscle volume, they can generate more force tha
parallel-fibered muscles of the same size.
 Interestingly, when muscle hypertrophies, there is
concomitant increase in the angulation of the constituen
fibers, and even in the absence of hypertrophy, thicke
muscles have larger pennation angles
 The parallel fiber arrangement, on the other hand,
enables greater shortening of the entire muscle than is
possible with a pennate arrangement.
 Parallel-fibered muscles can move body segments
through larger ranges of motion than can comparably
sized pennate-fibered muscles.