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Skeletal Muscle Architecture Skeletal muscle is not only highly organized to function at the microscopic level, the arrangement of the muscle fibers at the macroscopic level also demonstrates a striking degree of organization. Skeletal muscle architecture is defined as "the arrangement of muscle fibers relative to the axis of force generation." The functional properties of a whole muscle depend strongly on its architecture. The various types of arrangement are as numerous as the muscles themselves, …

…muscle inspection. Detailed dissections of cadaveric muscles are required for architectural determination (see Sacks and Roy, 1982, for a description of the methodology). However, after determining architectural properties, it is possible to understand how much force the muscle generates and how fast it contracts (or how far it contracts). Let's look at two specific architectural examples and their impact on the length-tension and force-velocity relationships. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography** http://wwwbio.ukc.ac.uk/Egeeves/research/home.htm