Science Projects Index

How the Muscles Move

When you are holding something and moving it, your muscles are moving in specific movements. To understand this, take a glass of water and hold it tightly in your right hand. With your left hand, you feel the muscles on the wrist and the forearm and see how they are tensed. Then you keep your left hand on the top of your arm muscles and then lift your right hand to bring the glass of water to the level of your mouth. You can feel the way the muscles are moving when you do this work. After this, put your left hand inside your elbow joint and then turn the glass in your right hand to bring it to your lips. You can feel the flexing of the muscles. By now you will have an understanding of the movements of the muscles to do various works.

The Relaxed Muscle

Whenever muscles and tendons are not doing work, they are in a relaxed state. You can see this by doing the following experiment.

Clasp both your hands together in such a way that your fingers are interlocked. But don't interlock your forefinger. Let the two forefingers be in an erect position.

Now tighten the other fingers and at the same time relax the forefinger. You will find the muscles slowly relaxing and the fingers coming close together.