Total Ql: 10 marks] You are at the gym, lifting weights. You and your instructor

Question

Total Ql: 10 marks] You are at the gym, lifting weights. You and your instructor start talking about how the length of the muscle can influence the force of contraction that a muscle can generate, with respect to both passive tension and active tension. You quickly get interested to test this in your practical class for this course by using a toad gastrocnemius muscle. 1.5 marks] 35988] a Write a suitable hypothesis to test in your experiment. b) Briefly describe how you would design and perform an experiment to test your hypothesis. include important details and avoiding trivial aspects. However, you are encouraged to use dot 3 marks] [35989] points

Explanation / Answer

1.A. Toad gastrocnemius muscles are the muscles close to our knee. The working of these muscles are reflex as we always need our legs for movement. There should be some mechanism that automatically pass the message to the brain so that movement of the leg is natural. These messages are electromagnetic that there are a number of experiments that can prove this hypothesis. The electromyogram is one such device which can be used to determine the action of these muscles. The amplitude of the graph would prove when the amplitude is more. For example, when the knee muscles are in an extended position the amplitude would definitely be more than when the knee would be in a flexed position. The hypothesis that knee movement is essential or its extension is important to measure their amplitude can be proved by the above said experiment.

b. To prove the above hypothesis the best method that can be used is the electromagnetic graph of a toad. We can take a toad and attach two electrodes to the portion just above the knee. These electrodes are attached ventrally on both sides of one of the legs of the toad. The electrodes can be attached to an electromyogram which in turn can be attached to a monitor that would show the graphic details whenever the knee is extended or in rest.

c. The table proves that the tension of the gastrocnemius muscles depends on the length of the muscles. The great the length the more the mean passive tension but the mean active tension is inversely proportional to the length of the muscles. This is because some force has to be applied in active tension. For example, if someone pulls suddenly the lower part of your leg under the knee the muscles have a tendency to contract first and some amount of energy is passed on to the force applied. However, when an athlete is running, the muscles move automatically and there is no need for any force for their extension. The graph, therefore, represents that the mean passive tension is more and increases with the number of muscles but the mean active tension decreases with the increase in the number of muscles.

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