Module Code - Title:
SS4203
-
PHYSIOLOGY OF MUSCLE IN MOVEMENT
Year Last Offered:
2026/7
Hours Per Week:
Grading Type:
N
Prerequisite Modules:
SS4202
Rationale and Purpose of the Module:
This module aims to deliver a thorough knowledge and understanding of skeletal muscle function. It will allow students to understand how skeletal muscle adapts to exercise, training and disease. By the end of the module students should have a full understanding of the Physiology of muscle applicable in sport and exercise sciences and in physiotherapy.
Syllabus:
Skeletal muscle structure at the tissue and cell level. The process of muscle contraction at the ultrastructural and whole muscle level. The Physiology and energetics of the muscle contraction process adn cross bridge cycle. Motor units and muscle fibre types.
Functional properties of the different muscle fibre types. Sources and consequences of skeletal muscle fatigue. Muscle training; neural and physiological adaptations to strength and endurance training. Muscle damage and muscle repair. Muscle disease and injury. Treatments for muscle injury and recovery.
Learning Outcomes:
Cognitive (Knowledge, Understanding, Application, Analysis, Evaluation, Synthesis)
Demonstrate an understanding of skeletal muscle physiology and how it relates to sport, exercise and health.
Recollect the important structures within skeletal muscle and understand how these respond during exercise and training.
Explain how muscle adapts to resistance and endurance training.
Predict how skeletal muscle would respond to exercise of different intensities and duration.
Analyse elements of the recent research literature on muscle resistance training and on muscle damage.
Explain how skeletal muscle plays a role in health and disease.
Evaluate the effects of muscle loss on health in the elderly.
Affective (Attitudes and Values)
Demonstrate a professional approach to the measurement of muscle function.
Integrate knowledge of muscle function with professional practice in sport and in clinical therapy.
Psychomotor (Physical Skills)
Demonstrate and apply skills in testing human muscle function
Demonstrate skills in physiological data recording and analysis.
Display abilities which correspond to safe human subject experimentation.
How the Module will be Taught and what will be the Learning Experiences of the Students:
Learning Objectives and UL graduate attributes will be achieved and developed using the following teaching and learning methodologies. Factual content will be delivered via lectures and guided reading. Tutorials will support the learning and allow students to synthesize and evaluate knowledge in the field. laboratories will aid theory learning and equip students to measure skeletal muscle function.
Prime Texts:
Jones DA, Round J, de Haan A (2004)
Skeletal muscle from molecules to movement.
, Churchill Livingstone ISBN 0 443 07427 5
Other Relevant Texts:
MacIntosh BR, Gardner PF, McComas AJ Skeletal (2006)
Muscle, form and function, 2nd Edition.
, Human Kinetics, Champaign IL
Programme(s) in which this Module is Offered:
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN SPORT AND EXERCISE SCIENCES
Semester(s) Module is Offered:
Autumn
Module Leader:
grainne.hayes@ul.ie