Skeletal Muscle Function Lab Report

Lab 4: Skeletal Muscle Function
Exercise 5: The Length-Tension Relationship

Materials and Methods
In this experiment I used a frog anesthetized with ms222. The frog’s skin is cut and removed from both the legs, the Achilles tendon is cut and the tendon and calf muscle are removed from the lower legs. The femur muscle is also cut. Attached to the legs are femur clamps which are connected to the transducer arm, stimulation electrodes are then positioned against the muscle. I plugged the output of the transducer to the data acquisition by putting the black plug to recording input 1. Two metal stimulating electrodes are then pushed against the excised muscle. I then connected the blue plug to the negative stimulator output on the data acquisition unit and then connected the
Initially you applied a shock to the shortened muscle and measured the tension. You then stretched the muscle and repeated the experiment. Did the amount of tension? The amount of tension increased as the muscle was stretched to about 28 mm. 9. If the amount of tension produced by the muscle depends upon the number of crossbridges according to you data did the number of crossbridges? The number of crossbridges increased as the muscle was lengthened to about 28 mm. 10. According to your data a single contraction produced maximum tension when the muscle was held at? Maximum tension was produced at about 28mm. 11. If maximum tension indicates that the thick and thin filaments are set at optimal overlap to produce a maximum number of crossbridges, further stretching of the muscle will? Further stretching of the muscle will decrease the amount of thick and thin filament overlap. 12. If the tension produced by a contracting muscle fiber depends upon the number of crossbridges between the thick and thin filaments stretching the muscle beyond 28mm? Stretching the muscle beyond 28 decreased the amount of overlap and decreased the amount of tension produced by a single