Biology Asked on December 16, 2020
I was looking up why smaller animals are proportionally stronger than larger animals. The answer that comes back everytime is that muscle force depends on the number of muscle fibers, which is proportional to the cross-sectional area of the muscle.
However, I don’t understand why muscle force wouldn’t depend on fiber length.
I’m not a native english speaker, so I’ll try my best to articulate my reasoning in the most concise way possible.
What am I missing ? Why is muscle fiber length not that important to muscle force ?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Here is a thought experiment that might help. Consider a single muscle fiber as being like a rope. Granted, a rope won't shorten on its own, but if you think of an isometric muscle contraction, then it's closer to what is happening when a single fiber contracts.
Now think about two situations:
So lining up more fibers in series is like making a longer and longer rope. It's still basically as strong (or weak) as a single rope. But when you bundle more ropes, increasing the cross-sectional area, the overall force that they can hold increases.
I'm not sure why a thought experiment needs citations, but here you go:
Answered by kmm on December 16, 2020
Get help from others!
Recent Questions
Recent Answers
© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP