Skateboarders—What Muscles Do We Depend On?

Skateboarding, as do other sports, relies heavily upon our muscles, getting them to contract when needed. Our bodies have many muscles that comprise the majority of soft tissues in our bodies. Muscles vary in size, color, function among different invertebrate and vertebrates animals, from worms to starfish to grasshoppers to sharks to salamanders to birds and mammals. Some muscles are simple while others are very complex in function. All require nerve stimulation before any action occurs. Nerve impulses originate from the central nervous system in higher animals as the source of stimulation.


There is some disagreement, however, among some scientists as to how many different kinds or types of muscle cells are present in our bodies: There are either two or three main kinds of muscles, depending on which scientist you listen to: 1) Smooth muscle (involuntary and not banded, uninucleate). 2) Cardiac or heart muscles (unbanded, involuntary and uninucleate). 3) Skeletal (voluntary, banded, and multinucleate).
Cardiac muscle, then, has characteristics of both of the other two kinds; they are banded or striated in appearance (similar to skeletal) yet involuntary in action with a single nucleus per cell (similar to smooth). So, for the reason cardiac muscle does not fit neatly and comfortably into either the skeletal or the smooth muscle categories, we will here choose to consider these as separate kinds of body muscles in along with smooth and skeletal muscle types.


Now let us take a moment and consider the similarities and differences among all types of muscles. Smooth muscle is involuntary. Examples of smooth muscle includes muscles in our stomach and intestines. Involuntary means that after we eat, we don’t have to consciously “turn on” stomach muscles to have them act; rather, our central nervous system turns them on automatically without us even having to think about it.
Voluntary, on the other hand, means that a specific conscious thought is required to originate a stimulus to activate a nerve which then activates a muscle. If we wish to travel from one place to another on our skateboard, we consciously lift one foot and place it on the board, then push with the other to begin and continue movement.


All muscles require nerve stimulation to act. Cardiac muscles found within out hearts have their own source of nerve stimulation, the SV and AV nodes, where stimuli originate and result in constant involuntary contractions known as the heart beat. Smooth muscles require only an initial nerve stimulus from our central nervous system which starts rhythmic contractions to occur for a period of time as needed with no further nerve impulses required to finish the task. On the other hand, skeletal muscles are activated consciously, such as in walking, writing, pushing a skateboard, picking up a pencil and writing, etc. Each action requires nerve stimulation. There are dozens of skeletal muscles-- making up to 80% of our bodies soft tissues and involved in one way or another in every functioning organ system within our bodies. These muscles serve in a way to perform “work” to the best advantage with our bones serving as mechanical levers in moving and performing work. Your favorite meat dish whether it be loin, steak, chicken breast or drumstick are basically animal skeletal muscles. Similar to skeletal muscles, cardiac muscles contain a sort of “banding” or striations. These are darker areas of arrangements of protein strands which stain and appear as “bands” under the microscope. Involuntary smooth muscles have no such banding.


In summary, the three main kinds of muscles in our bodies are smooth (unbanded), cardiac (banded), and skeletal (sometimes called striated due to the appearance of bands under the microscope). Smooth and cardiac are involuntary muscles acting without conscious stimulation. Skeletal muscles are numerous, voluntary, requiring conscious stimulation to activate therm. These latter muscles are most important and depended upon to successfully operate skateboards and longboards.