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Introduction to anatomy
In this video, Kayla and Victor give an overview of human anatomy relevant to movement analysis.
Hi, I’m Kayla. Hi, I’m Victor. And I’m the lab engineer. And in this section, we’re going to talk about basic musculoskeletal biomechanics and how it applies to motion capture and movement analysis. The big thing that we’re going to do is focus on vocabulary so we have the right language to talk about this. This is by no means a comprehensive class. It’s just an introduction into the vocabulary and the words that we use during speaking about human biomechanics. Yeah, so it’s just for you to have an introduction. And then you can look forward if you need more.
And you can google things using these words that are the key concepts that you might need for your motion analysis and motion capture experiments. Yeah, so anatomy itself is simply just the study of the structure of the body. So we use common words in order to have the same language across all papers or talks or definitions or conferences. So the first thing we’re going to talk about is putting Victor into what we call the anatomical position. So that’s just our neutral body position. So as you see, his eyes are facing forward and his head is straight. His palms are casually at his side, facing inwards. And his feet are just barely shoulder width apart.
And we use this just basic setup as a neutral body when we talk about the human body movement or static positioning. If you were, say, to be lying on the ground, do you know what the anatomical position on the ground is? I think so. OK, so when on the ground, Victor would actually be lying down and facing up. That’s called supine. I can show you. So if you’re talking about somebody lying on the ground or on a table or in a neutral position, that’s the anatomical position on the ground. Got it– all right, you can stand back up. Great. So now that we have the position, we’re going to talk about directional terms.
So we’re not talking like north, south, east, west– more of in a body. So Victor has these lovely arrows that we can use to demonstrate what’s going on. You can see these also in any anatomical textbooks. But sometimes it’s easier to look at a body. So first we’re going to talk about is medial-lateral. That’s– yep, there you go. OK, so medial-lateral is in that direction. And it’s towards his midline and then away from his midline– so medial, mid, lateral, away. Awesome, and if it’s not in his body, you can do medial to something. So if his palm is out, it could be medial to the midline of that specific step. The next is that first one we did, anterior-posterior direction.
So that’s on his side. And we go anterior is towards the front. And posterior is towards the back. The next one we’re going to talk about is superficial and deep. Can you do that? Yeah, awesome– so superficial and deep is towards the inside of your body and outside. So superficial is on the outside. And deep is inside your body. That’s a little harder to picture because we’re not going to cut him open. Now we’re going to do superior-inferior. Superior is up, and inferior is below. And in general, we use kind of the belly button region as that neutral point.
So when we’re going to talk about above and below or any other terms, that belly button tends to be that origin section. Those are our basic terms. There are a lot of other directional terms that we use. But those are the most basic used to describe your body positioning. All right, now that’s his static position when he’s stationary. Now we’re going to get into a little bit more about movement. But before we talk about movement, we’re going to talk about the musculoskeletal system. Do you know what the musculoskeletal system is? I do. Yeah, do you want to tell them about it or should I? You should tell them. OK, great.
So the musculo– when we talk about anatomy itself, we can talk about regional or systemic. Your regions are things like your head is a region of your body. And systemic are things like your cardiovascular system, that system that pumps blood through your body. What we’re going to talk about in this is what most applies to movement analysis is our musculoskeletal system. And that’s actually two words because it’s two systems that we’re merging into one. That first musculo is your muscular system as it applies to skeletal muscle. So your heart is a muscle, but we’re talking about the muscles that move your body. And then your skeletal system is just as it sounds. It is your bones.
But it’s a bit more than that. Your skeleton is actually that scaffold of your body. It provides that form and structure that allows your body to not just flop around on the ground. So it is comprised of bones. Do you know something else in your skeletal system? Ligaments. Yup, ligaments and tendons and joints– so all of that connective tissue that helps form that base structure of those skeletons that you may have been for, I don’t know, Halloween. So you can’t see your skeleton because it’s beneath all of this. But big important parts that we talk about with human movement is how do we get to that skeleton because that is that base of the skeleton.
So your bones have these really fun things on them. They’re called bony landmarks. Now you think about landmark, you might think on a map, like a mountain. It’s a similar concept. So your bony landmarks actually all have names to them. So when you look at bones, say, your elbow, that bony part that protrudes actually has a specific name to it along with all of these other, say, little things that you can see outside of your body. When we talk about human movement, usually try different strategies for how to track the movement of the landmarks themselves. Do you know the name of any bony landmarks? No, I cannot come up with any now.
OK, so if you want to follow along with me, a simple one to find is a very commonly used one. If you take your thumbs and go to the top of your hips, and then that pelvic muscle, and then trace all the way down to the front, you’ll actually feel this point sticking out. That’s got a lot of words to it. And some of it we’ve just talked about. That is the anterior– remember, we talked about that– superior, so in front and above, anterior superior iliac spine. So that’s a commonly used bony landmark to track the movement of that pelvic structure. All right, so another thing that is part of this skeletal system is your joints.
Could you name a joint for me? The elbow. The elbow, awesome– so your elbow, what do you think? And your elbow is a joint. Shoulder is a joint. There’s a lot of joints in your body. We’re not going to name all of them. Those can be in books. The biggest thing about joints is they all have different forms, which means they all have different functions. So your shoulder moves different than your elbow, moves different from those bones that are connected in your head.
And so from a joint motion perspective, we actually need muscles to move your joints. So your muscles are your skeletal muscles themselves. They are responsible for the movement as well as actually insulation of those joints and bones. So when a muscle contracts or fires, it actually shortens. Muscles pull and not push. So if you watch your bicep, when it contracts, it actually bumps up and shortens and pulls that forearm into your arm. So movement itself, there’s a few major movement types. Like we had talked about with directions, there’s actually words for movement in those directions. So if we’re going to focus on, say, Victor’s hip, because that’s a little easier one to look at.
If he moves his hip, say, in flexion and extension– all right, so that’s his back. Oh. Yeah, yeah, hip joint. Oh. Yeah, flexion and extension– all right, so flexion and extension, many of your joints do this. It’s that anterior-posterior movement that changes the angle of the joint. Now the other one that you might not have heard of as frequently is called A-B-duction, abduction, and A-D-duction, adduction. It’s a little harder to hear verbally. The way that I remember is ad, is you go add to your body, and ab, you go away from your body. So it’s making that snow angel movement.
Then there’s another one that’s a little easier to visualise on video. And that’s rotation. So we have internal and external rotation. So if you move your arm internally, those move towards you. And externally moves away from you. When you add all these together, you actually get this beautiful circumduction movement. So it’s a combination of that anterior-posterior movement of flexion-extension, as well as that rotation and that A-B/A-D-duction. So that gets all in that big movement that your shoulder can do so lovely. The last one we’re going to talk about is specific types. So for example, dorsiplant and plantar flexion is used specifically for that ankle joint.
Or if we talk about supination and pronation, those are usually just used for your hands or your feet. So those are just kind of major terms. There are lists and tables of these. But when we talk about movement analysis, making sure we use those right ways to describe them. All right, is there anything you’d like to add? Just that you don’t have to memorise this now. But this is important to know that there is this terminology. And this is how you will find things. If you are wondering about other research, this is how things should be described and will be described. So this is how you look for things with this type of terms and with this terminology.
So this will help you in the future. And this will help you to read more about your experiments, to plan your experiments better, and to be more consistent in your reporting. So later on in this section, we’re going to have an article that will have a little bit more explanation as well as expand on more anatomy knowledge such as different parts of your body. And there will also be other resources for where you can find additional information. Yeah. So all right, that’s all we have for now. We’ll see you later.
What systems in the human body are relevant to movement? What is the musculoskeletal system, and how does it work?
In this video, Kayla and Victor give an overview of human anatomy relevant to movement analysis. They will introduce terminology and provide visual demonstrations. You will also learn more about these concepts in the coming steps.
This article is from the online course:
Motion Capture: The Art of Studying Human Activity
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Motion Capture: The Art of Studying Human Activity
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