Good Learning Co.
SavannahYear 8
← PE
PESports science: how the body performs22 min★★ difficulty

Bones, joints and muscles in movement

Every sporting movement is a negotiation between bones that cannot bend, joints that decide how they can move, and muscles that only ever pull.

Part of your national curriculum
  • Health and fitness: Develop components of fitness through sustained physical activity, understanding the effects of exercise on the body

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Develop components of fitness through sustained physical activity, understanding the effects of exercise on the body

Key learning points

  • • Joints decide what a movement can look like
  • • Muscles work in pairs
  • • Two kinds of muscle fibre
  • • Contraction types you can feel

This lesson at a glance

  • 22 minutes
  • 16 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • Marked quiz at the end
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

componentsfitnesssustainedphysicalactivity

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 16 · Discover6%
1

Watch & discover

Part 1 of 16

Watch first

Bones, joints and muscles in movement

An English teaching video on this topic from TED-Ed. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Develop components of fitness through sustained physical activity, understanding the effects of exercise on the body

2

Learning cycle

Part 2 of 16

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 · Joints decide what a movement can look like

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

3

Explore the idea

Part 3 of 16

Learn

Joints decide what a movement can look like

The skeleton gives the body shape, protects organs like the heart and brain, stores minerals and makes blood cells — but for sport its most important job is providing levers and joints. A hinge joint (knee, elbow) moves mainly in one plane: flexion and extension. A ball-and-socket joint (shoulder, hip) adds rotation, abduction and adduction, which is why a bowling arm can circle but a knee cannot. Knowing the joint type tells you which movements are trainable and which are an injury waiting to happen.

4

Explore the idea

Part 4 of 16

Learn

Muscles work in pairs

Muscles only pull, never push, so they are arranged in antagonistic pairs. When the biceps contracts to flex the elbow it is the agonist (prime mover) and the triceps is the antagonist, lengthening under control. Reverse the movement and the roles swap. Around them, fixators stabilise the joint (the deltoid steadying the shoulder) and synergists guide the direction of pull. When a netball player passes, the triceps is the agonist for the push and the biceps controls the follow-through.

5

Quick check

Part 5 of 16

Quick check

Which joint type allows rotation as well as flexion and extension?

6

Quick check

Part 6 of 16

Quick check

During the upward phase of a press-up, the triceps is acting as the:

7

Reset break

Part 7 of 16

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
8

Learning cycle

Part 8 of 16

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 · Two kinds of muscle fibre

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

9

Explore the idea

Part 9 of 16

Learn

Two kinds of muscle fibre

Type I (slow twitch) fibres contract slowly, resist fatigue and use oxygen well — a distance runner has a high proportion. Type II (fast twitch) fibres contract quickly and powerfully but fatigue fast — a sprinter or a high jumper relies on them. Everyone has both; training shifts how well each type performs rather than swapping one for the other.

10

Explore the idea

Part 10 of 16

Learn

Contraction types you can feel

An isotonic concentric contraction shortens the muscle (rising out of a squat). An isotonic eccentric contraction lengthens it under tension (lowering into the squat, or the quadriceps absorbing landing forces). An isometric contraction produces force with no change in length (a gymnast holding a crucifix, a rugby player in a maul). Eccentric work causes most of the muscle soreness felt a day or two after training.

11

Quick check

Part 11 of 16

Quick check

A 5000m runner is likely to have a high proportion of which fibre type?

12

Quick check

Part 12 of 16

Quick check

Lowering slowly into a squat is an example of which contraction?

13

Explore the idea

Part 13 of 16

Worked example

Analyse a movement in three steps

Take a football instep pass. 1) Name the joint and movement: hip flexion then knee extension. 2) Name the agonist: the quadriceps extends the knee. 3) Name the contraction: concentric during the strike, eccentric in the hamstrings as they decelerate the leg. Any movement in any sport can be described with these same three steps.

14

Challenge round

Part 14 of 16

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

15

Mastery quiz

Part 15 of 16

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: Bones, joints and muscles in movement

4 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

  1. 1. Which joint type allows rotation as well as flexion and extension?

  2. 2. During the upward phase of a press-up, the triceps is acting as the:

  3. 3. A 5000m runner is likely to have a high proportion of which fibre type?

  4. 4. Lowering slowly into a squat is an example of which contraction?

16

Lesson round-up

Part 16 of 16

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Article

What a warm-up is actually for

A warm-up raises the heart rate, sends more blood to the working muscles and raises muscle temperature by a couple of degrees. Warm muscle stretches further before it tears, and messages between brain and muscle travel faster, so movement is more accurate.

A good warm-up has three parts: a few minutes of easy movement, mobility that takes joints through the range the sport needs, and short bursts at close to game speed.

Long, still stretching before explosive sport can slow the muscle down. Save that kind of stretching for the cool-down.

Written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. Explain in your own words two things a warm-up does to the body.
  2. Design a ten-minute warm-up for one sport, with times for each part.
  3. Keep a training log for three sessions: what you did, how long, and how you felt after.

  • Training log

    Writing

    Write what you did, for how long, and how your body felt afterwards.

    Half a page

Saved as you type.

Part 1 of 16 · Watch & discover

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    Develop components of fitness through sustained physical activity, understanding the effects of exercise on the body

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