So, we discussed the histological portions of skeletal muscle tissue.
Now lets talk about the gross anatomy and this is really one of our first phrase,
and took gross anatomy indicating that it is visible.
So anything thats visible in terms of a dissection,
we're gonna introduce that concept here.
Now when youre talking about a skeletal muscle,
theres typically two main components.
You have the muscle belly, which is what we typically think
of when we're thinking of a muscle and then you have the tendon.
Remember, when we were talking about ligaments.
Ligaments mean bone to bone.
Tendon is muscle to bone.
So, this is where you actually have that connective tissue continuing on from
the muscle belly and actually attaching to the bone.
So when this muscle contracts, it allows for the bone to move.
Muscle belly is composed of skeletal muscle cells and
we'll get into more detail, and to the specifics in a moment whereas all of
those muscle cells are surrounded by differing levels of connective tissue.
That connective tissue all comes together to form the tendon.
Now you can have a very robust muscle belly in terms of it being kind of wide or
thick, or you can have wide muscle bellies.
Very dependent on what the specific function of
the muscle is as into what it's gonna look like.
The same can be said in terms of tendons.
So, you can have tendons that are very rope-like as you can
see here in terms of the biceps brachia.
So when we think of our biceps brachia, think of flexing.
You have actually, because they're referred to as biceps.
Meaning, two heads.
So, two different tendons attaching to the scapula.
You can see this white portion right here and
you can see it even extending a little bit further.
That's going to be the tendon.
It's gonna be glistening when youre doing a dissection whereas you
can see the brownish portion.
Sometimes, it'll appear red.
That's going to be the muscle belly.
So typically, what we think of when we're talking about muscles.
So you can have those more rope-like tendons or
you can have tendons that are very flat and expansive, and one of
the main examples of that is your rectus sheath which you have in the abdomen,
and you see the shiny portion all over the anterior part of the abdomen.
This is all an example of a tendon.
And specifically when you have it spread out like this,
it's referred to as an aponeurosis.
So, an aponeurosis is basically an amalgamation of tendons from several
different types of muscles that kinda spread out over a wider area.
So and this is an important component of the anterior abdomen,
because think of what you don't have in the anterior abdomen.
Yes, you don't have bones in this area as in comparison to other areas.
So you need this thicker, more protective portion of the tendon.
Now, one other thing that you can see in terms of a gross dissection of
the musculoskeletal system is what's referred to as a neurovascular bundle and
this is going to be wrapped up in its own type of connective tissue.
You typically will have one nerve and
that nerve will spread it axons out to the specific skeletal muscle cells,
but you wont see that in terms of gross dissection.
You typically see kind of the amalgamation of the nerve.
So one nerve, one artery and typically one to two veins.
And when we have the two veins surrounding an artery as a vena comitans and
what will happen is say, this is an artery.
Its red like any good artery would be.
And then on either side,
you would have two veins that are going to drain that specific area.
So in gross anatomy when youre doing a dissection,
you wanna find the muscle belly.
The muscle tendon and youll typically have at least two,
and sometimes multiple tendons associated with
a muscle as well as the main neurovascular bundle for the muscle.