Online Lab: Muscle Function

This lab is representing how muscle function works when there are different circumstances happening. In the first part we tested the effects of cold weather and muscles. In the second part we were testing to see how fatigue effects the muscles.

1. The three changes that I noticed while doing this experiment were that muscles move slower when cold. They also work slower when they are fatigued. When flexing your muscles, their shape changes.

2. While testing with the cold water experiment (picture to the left is my hand in cold water for 1 minute) the muscles move a lot slower. Before I put my hand in the cold water, I could pump the blood pressure bulb 35 times. When I removed my hand from the water I could only pump it 28 times.

3. While testing for fatigue, the muscles also performed slower. Here are my results for that test:

1. 43

2. 41

3. 37

4. 34

5. 29

6. 25

7. 23

8. 24

9. 20

When testing the cold temperature experiment, the reason that the pumps went down after removing my hand from the water is that cold weather has an effect on muscles. If you think about it like this, when your standing outside in the cold how does your body respond? Usually your heart rate is much slower; therefore, when your cold, the muscles in the body will move slower because of the temperature difference. All processes in the body become slower is very cold climate.

When the body gets fatigued it takes a lot more energy to produce a process. While doing the experiment we were asked not to take breaks so our muscles became fatigued. When you work out you burn more energy (ATP) than you can produce. If you can't produce the energy to support the activity, then you become fatigued.