what are skeletal muscles?

Question

what do skeletal muscles do and can they be built-up like regular muscles?

Answer 1

Skeletal muscles are all of the muscles you are probably thinking of, they are the muscles that attach to your skeleton. So your bicep and Glutes and just about any major muscle group are skelital muscles. The other kinds of muscles are smooth muscles, like the ones that move food through your digestive tract.

Answer 2

Skeletal Muscles are often referred to as the regular muscle such as the the biceps, triceps, deltoids in the arms, and quadriceps, hamstring, calf in the legs.

Bones are required for movement and locomotion, but they are unable to move on their own. They must be moved by the alternate contraction and relaxation of the skeletal muscles. Many bones have ridges and protuberances which provide an area for muscle attachment. Skeletal muscles act on the bones that serve as a system of levers. Movements of various parts of the body may result in locomotion of the body as a whole.

Answer 3

"Skeletal muscles move and support the skeleton. They make up fifty percent of your body weight. There are 640 individually named skeletal muscles. A skeletal muscle links two bones across its connecting joint. When these muscles contract or shorten, your bone moves. [...] Skeletal muscles are voluntary muscles. These are muscles that we can consciously control" (see http://library.thinkquest.org/5777/mus3.htm ).

Seeing as how skeletal muscles are voluntary muscles, we can consciously move them, which - in most cases - would mean that we can build them up. A classic example of a skeletal muscle is the bicep (your upper arm), which is probably the most "built-up" muscle in all of history, i.e. by curling iron.
:-)

Answer 4

Skeletal muscles are what you'd think of as "regular" muscles. It's just the more scientifically/biologically/anatomically "correct" term.
They are the muscles that attach to and move your skeleton. They are responsible for all your physical movements, and, of course, they can be built up by exercising them.

Answer 5

Skeletal muscle is a type of striated muscle, attached to the skeleton. Skeletal muscles are used to facilitate movement, by applying force to bones and joints; via contraction. They generally contract voluntarily (via nerve stimulation), although they can contract involuntarily.

Muscles have an elongated, cylindrical shape, and are multinucleated (in mammals). The nuclei of these muscles are located in the peripheral aspect of the cell, just under the plasma membrane, which vacates the central part of the muscle fiber for myofibrils. This unique arrangement of the nuclei allows for higher efficiency. (Conversely, when the nucleus is located in the center it is considered a pathologic condition known as centronuclear myopathy.)

Skeletal muscles usually have one end (the "origin") attached to a relatively stationary bone, (such as the scapula) and the other end (the "insertion") is attached across a joint, to another bone (such as the humerus).

There are two types of fibers for skeletal muscles: Type I and Type II. Type I fibers appear reddish. They are good for endurance and are slow to tire because they use oxidative metabolism. Type II fibers are whitish; they are used for short bursts of speed and power, use anaerobic metabolism, and are therefore quicker to tire.

Answer 6

they are the ones that are connected to your skeleton as the name suggests. the cells of skeletal muscles are usually mononucleated and are striated.

the other muscles are the smooth muscles and the cardiac muscles.

Answer 7

skeletal muscle
n.
A usually voluntary muscle made up of elongated, multinucleated, transversely striated muscle fibers, having principally bony attachments. Also called striated muscle.

Answer 8

Are you in AMP? lol Skeletal: striated, multinucleate, and arranged in parallel fascicles. Every fiber innervated and under voluntary control Smooth: lacks striations and arranged in sheets in many internal organs. Involuntary and under the control of the ANS