Lesson video

Hi there and welcome to today's lesson.

I'm Mr. Swaithes and I'm really looking forward to teaching you today.

So today's lesson is called Different joints and their movements, and it comes from the unit Anatomy and physiology: the musculoskeletal system.

And it's our opportunity to explore the different joints of the human body and the correct anatomical terms for the movements that occur at them.

So for example, have you heard of someone refer to flexion at the elbow joint? Which is a posh way of saying bending.

But what about some of the other terms for other joints around the body? Do you know of any of those names? So by the end of this lesson you will be able to describe the movements that occur at different types of joints.

And the really useful thing about that is you can then apply it to sporting examples to be able to talk about what that movement is that's happening at the various joints when we play sport.

There's a whole collection of new key terms for you today, and here are five of them, the five most important ones.

So you might want to pause the video now to make a note of these definitions, but we'll be certainly revisiting them as we go through today's lesson and a couple of extra ones as well that you'll need to be able to define.

Okay, so the lesson's split up into three parts.

The first one will help you understand those anatomical terms. Then we're gonna identify movements possible at the different joints around the body.

So ball and socket, hinge joints, what movements do they allow, et cetera.

And then the exciting bit of this lesson is the third part where we start to analyse some sporting movements.

So if you're ready, let's get going then.

Okay, so anatomical terms are used to describe different types of movement at our joints.

Here we can see someone in the handstand position with their legs astride.

Would we be able to describe the different body positions that we've got at these different joints, I wonder? And to be able to do this, we need to be able to talk about flexion and extension as two alternatives.

I mentioned earlier that flexion is a posh word for bending, extending is straightening, but we're then gonna go into the words abduction and adduction.

They're opposites to each other, but probably words you've not come across before.

Then we'll look at rotation.

Now you've perhaps thought about, here I am rotating my neck to the left and to the right.

So you've probably come across the term there, but where else can we rotate? And then circumduction, almost certainly another new word for you today, which is about drawing a circle.

So I wonder, can you demonstrate and explain what any of these look like? Let's get on then.

So flexion is when you decrease the angle at a joint.

We often refer to this as bending, but that is less obvious at a ball and socket joint as we'll discover in a minute.

But it can definitely happen, flexion, at the shoulder, the elbow, the hip, and the knee joints.

So have a little look with these illustrations.

So at the elbow, that's the most obvious one, flexion.

We use our biceps muscle to flex our elbow joint.

Knee flexion, using our hamstrings muscle, our hamstrings group.

But then shoulder flexion.

How do we decrease the angle at this shoulder joint? Well, what we do is we lift it up in front of us, which causes a decrease in the angle.

And similarly at the hip we can flex and that moves up into that angle.

If we just use this skeleton of mine quickly and put it into that shoulder flexion, hip flexion position, can you see that that kind of spells out a capital F letter? So that's how I remember what flexion is like at the shoulder and the hip joint.

I think, well, if I moved into hip and shoulder flexion, I would be spelling the letter F.

I mean you can actually flex further, right up to above your head here.

And then importantly we'll move on to look at what extension looks like.

So extension is where you increase the angle at a joint.

So we often refer to this as straightening and it can happen at the shoulder, elbow, hip and knee.

So same joints as we allow flexion.

And here's what that looks like.

So straightening the elbow, straightening the knee, this shoulder joint coming back down to that position at the side of the body and then the hip extension coming back down.

And actually you can extend beyond straight here, which we sometimes term hyperextension.

So perhaps preparing to kick a ball in football, I would hyperextend my hip joint to get in that position right back there.

But extension is fine for now.

Okay, and then interestingly, we can flex and extend at our ankle joint.

They've got a special term for that.

Anyone know what it's called? Well it's called plantar flexion.

So when you point your toes, that's called plantar flexion.

And then when you lift your toes back up towards the shin, that's called dorsiflexion.

So if I just bring this model in again.

So if I point the toes, that would be plantar flexion and dorsiflexion would be moving back up.

And actually this skeleton isn't very flexible at its ankle joints.

It doesn't allow much movement at all there.

Can you demonstrate plantar flexion? Come on, get yourself up and plantar flex your ankle joints.

What happens if you plantar flex both? That's right.

You've gone up onto tiptoes, haven't you? Okay, so a quick check.

Which of the following is the correct definition of flexion? Is it A: decreasing the angle at a joint? Is it B: increasing the angle at a joint? Is it C: movement towards the midline of the body? Or is it D: movement in more than one plane? IE: flexion, extension, abduction and adduction combined.

Have a little think.

That's right.

It's A, isn't it? So decreasing the angle at a joint is known as flexion.

Okay, let's move into these two perhaps newer terms. Abduction is when you move a limb away from the midline of the body, and it can happen at the hip and at the shoulder joints.

A nice way to remember that is that we get abducted or taken away by aliens, moved away.

And you can see abduction happening here.

So if my shoulder joints come up to the side into that kind of star position of a star jump, my shoulders are abducted and my hip joints, if I've spread my legs apart, they are abducted too.

So it stands to reason, doesn't it, that adduction is adding the limbs back towards the midline of the body.

So it happens when you bring your arms and legs back to your side.

You can see adduction here.

So that picture is actually in the abducted position and adduction is being shown by the arrow.

So again, important when you try and describe these, you talk about moving into, 'cause if it's a still image, will you describe the position it's in or the position it's going to move into? So be careful with that when you're answering these questions.

Okay, another quick check then.

Which of the following is the correct definition of adduction? Is it A: decreasing the angle at a joint? Is it B: spreading your fingers apart at the hand? Is it C: movement in a circle along the long axis of a bone? Or is it D: movement towards the midline of the body? That's right, it's D: movement towards the midline of the body.

Okay, a couple more terms to get through.

So rotation is when a limb turns around its long axis.

So it's kind of a circular movement where part of the body turns whilst the rest remains still.

And we can do this at the shoulder joint.

I'm doing it here.

So rotation is where you kind of draw a dot.

And I described it earlier, didn't I? Rotation at my neck joint as well.

Perhaps if I'm swimming, to take a breath from the side.

And then there's another term, circumduction, which is where you're moving in a circular motion.

So again, if I just shuffle back, if I use this big circular motion, that's circumduction.

So I can rotate, or if I make a bigger movement, it's circumduction.

Can you think of any sporting examples of that in action? I'm sure you can.

So circumduction is where it occurs in more than one plane.

So it's a combination of inflexion, extension, abduction, and adduction.

So sometimes when you're answering these questions, you might talk about the whole movement being circumduction, but different parts of it are maybe flexion or extension or abduction or adduction.

And that can happen at the shoulder joint and a little bit at the hip joint as well.

So which of the following is the correct definition of circumduction? Is it A: the action of pointing the toes in a downwards motion? Is it B: increasing the angle at a joint? Is it C: movement towards the midline of the body? Or is it D: movement in more than one plane? IE: flexion, extension, abduction and adduction all combined.

Which do you think? That's right.

Circumduction is that combination of flexion, extension, abduction, and adduction.

Okay, so that brings us to our first practise task of this lesson where I want you to label these diagrams of a netballer taking a chest pass and a sprinter accelerating out of the blocks, and see if you can identify where flexion and extension, abduction and adduction, rotation and circumduction, plantar flexion and dorsiflexion are happening.

And they might not all be happening in these clips, so be careful.

And then I also want you to provide a definition for each of these key terms. So it'll take you a couple of moments to label it up and then a little bit longer to write those definitions.

So take your time on that one, pause the video and come back to me when you are ready.

Okay, let's have a look and see if you came up with the same as me.

So we can see extension and adduction at the shoulder joint here in the preparation phase, because the arm is to the side and down, or the upper arm of the shoulder joint.

We can see flexion at the elbow, so that bend at the elbow joint in the preparation phase.

But then into the execution stage we see the shoulder joints move up.

So that is flexion but still adducted tight to the body.

So we're not flapping those elbows out to the side, which would be abduction.

And then we're also extending at the elbow joint.

Did you get that one correct? Okay.

And what about the sprinter then? So interestingly, we can see that starting to plantar flex at the ankle joint.

And as he accelerates on out and points his toes more, that'll be even more plantar flexion there.

We can see extension at the back hip, so that straight back hip to accelerate out of the blocks.

We can see that back knee is extending to straighten.

Meanwhile the front knee is flexed, so it's in that bent position.

We've got extension at the right elbow, so as it's moving straighter.

We've got extension and adduction at the shoulder joint of that right arm.

Slight flexion in the right, sorry, the left shoulder.

So that lead shoulder is moving up in front.

And also slight flexion of the elbow on that lead arm.

Did you get all of those ones correct? They take some practise these, don't they? Okay.

And what about the definitions? So were you able to define it? So flexion: decreasing the angle at a joint, otherwise known as bending.

Extension: increasing the angle at a joint, or strengthening of the joint.

Abduction is that movement away from midline of the body.

Adduction is moving back towards the midline of the body.

Rotation is where you rotate around a long axis and a bit of a circular movement that's happening there.

Circumduction is that whole circular motion around a joint.

Plantar flexion is the way we describe pointing our toes at the ankle, and dorsiflexion is that returning your heel to the floor or even bringing your toes up towards your tibia.

I hope you got all of those and we'll continue to practise them through this lesson.

Okay, so let's move into the second part of the lesson where we're gonna look at what's possible at different joints.

So hinge joints are the most basic joints in the human body, aren't they? We've got them at the knee and the elbow and they only allow flexion and extension, so bending and straightening.

So I wonder, can you stand up for me and flex or bend and then extend or straighten your right elbow and your right knee at the same time? Can you show me what that looks like? Okay, hopefully it looks a little bit like this.

So you've got your arm flexing and extending, flexing and extending at the elbow joint.

And we've got the knee joint flexing and extending.

Really important we don't say the leg is flexing, because obviously the upper leg is jointed at the hip and the lower leg is jointed at the knee.

So we've gotta talk about the movements that are happening at different joints, not at the whole limb.

Okay, what about ball and socket joints then? So we've got them at the hip and the shoulder.

They also allow flexion and extension.

So in this deep squat position, you can see the hip joint is in that flexed position, and actually the knees are in a flexed position as well, but they're a hinge joint.

So we've got the flexed position at the hip joint, and as this person stands up, they will be extending their hips using their gluteals, gluteus maximus, their bum muscles.

Okay, so can you have a go at standing up, flex your right shoulder and your right hip joints and hold that position? Really testing your balance now, aren't I? Come on.

Okay, that's it.

So hopefully you are in that body position that I modelled earlier with the skeleton.

So that flexed with the right arm, sorry, with the right shoulder joint and flexed at the right hip joint.

So standing in that capital F position.

Okay, and then the ball and socket joints at your shoulder and your hip also allow abduction and adduction, so that movement away from the midline and movement back together again.

Can you stand up and abduct both hips and both shoulder joints and hold that position for me? Come on.

You know I'm watching you.

So it should look like that, in that star position.

Fully abducted is right up at the top here, and I guess partially abducted would be out to the side here.

And then as you return back together again, jump your feet together and your hands together is that adducted position.

What about circumduction then and rotation? So we're able to rotate and draw a dot, or circumduct and draw a circle.

Can you stand up and circumduct your right shoulder for me? Wonder what sport you do this in? Hopefully it looks like this.

And I guess if you're going one way, it might look like a cricket bowl and if you're going the other way, it might look more like backstroke in swimming.

Okay, that takes us into the second task of today's lesson.

So I'd like you to add ticks into this table to illustrate all of the movements that are possible at different types of joint.

So you've got the elbow, knee, shoulder, and hip labelled up there, which of that list of movements are possible at those joints? And then secondly, I want you to name and describe what are the special movements that are possible at the ankle joint.

So pause the video now and come back to me when you are ready.

Okay, hopefully your table looks a little bit like this.

So the elbow and knee, both hinge joints, so they only allow flexion and extension.

The shoulder being a ball and socket joint allows all of those movements.

And actually the hip joint also to a certain extent allows all the movements, although you have a go at it, rotating your hip is nowhere near as easy as rotating your shoulder joint.

And similarly, circumducting is nowhere near as easy at the hip joint.

And that's because there's a much shallower cavity that this ball and socket sits in at my shoulder compared to my hip joint.

Can you name and describe the movements possible at the ankle joint was the second part of this question.

And hopefully you've written about how plantar flexion is pointing your toes and dorsiflexion is lifting those toes up towards the tibia.

Well done with that one.

Okay, as promised, let's move into the third and most exciting part of this lesson.

We've done a bit of this already, but trying to really unpick some of those movements in sporting examples and analysing the correct terminology of what's happening.

So here we've got someone doing the downward phase of a bicep curl.

So they're moving from this position down to straight in weightlifting.

And to do that they are extending their elbow joint.

If the athlete then performs flexion at the elbow joint, the weight will get lifted back up into that bent arm position.

So, a quick check then.

Which of the following is an example of flexion? Is it A: execution of kicking a ball at the knee in football? Is it B: elbow action when preparing to perform a chest pass in netball? Or is it C: standing on tiptoes in a dance performance? You might wanna act these out to try and figure it out.

That's right, it's the elbow action when preparing to perform a chest pass in netball.

Because actually, when you execute kicking a ball, the knee joint is extending and when you stand on tiptoes, the fancy word for that is plantar flexion, isn't it? Okay, let's have a little look at someone kicking a ball then.

So when a footballer strikes a ball and follows through, they've performed full extension at their knee joint and they're also flexing their hip at the same time to bring that leg up in front.

We can see another movement going on actually, can you see what's happening at the right ankle joint? That's right.

The toes are getting pointed, aren't they? To strike the ball with the laces, which is known as plantar flexion.

And what about the left ankle joint? So to hold that body position and the balance, it's gonna be slightly dorsiflexed, isn't it? And as he leans forward, this performer, perhaps becoming more dorsiflexed to maintain balance.

So let's have another quick check.

Which of the following is not an example of extension? Is it A: movement at the hip joint when preparing to kick a ball? Is it B: movement at the elbow joint during execution of a set shot in basketball? Or is it C: movement at the shoulder joint to reach out to the side to save a ball in football? That's correct.

So C is not an example of extension 'cause that reach out to the side is actually abduction, isn't it? Speaking of abduction, let's take a look at it.

So this gymnast is holding the iron cross position on the rings and that requires them to bring both shoulder joints up into that abducted position.

Really hard and requires a lot of strength to hold that position.

So let's have a quick check then.

Which of the following is also an example of abduction? Is it the execution phase of a leg kick of a hip joint in swimming breast stroke? Or is it B: standing with arms by your side and feet together at the start of a floor routine in gymnastics? Or is it C: standing on tiptoes in a dance performance? What do you think? That's right.

It's A, the execution phase of that leg kick.

So that butterfly kick, sorry, not butterfly.

Breaststroke kick movement, where the legs are moving apart and back together, and it's as they move apart, it's abduction, back together and then they're pulled back into the body.

Speaking of swimmers, here we've got one doing butterfly.

So as the swimmer reaches their arms out away from the midline of the body when exploding out of the water swimming butterfly, it's referred to as abduction of the shoulder joint.

Let's do another quick check then.

So which of the following is not an example of adduction this time? So is it jumping arms and legs back together during a star jump? Is it B: a hip joint position in trampolining when performing a straight jump? Or is it C: the movement at the shoulder joint when preparing to throw a javelin? Have a little think.

Maybe act those movements out to yourself.

Hopefully you selected C.

So that's not an example of adduction because that T position that you get in before throwing a javelin, that T position is abduction of the shoulder joint.

Whereas the other two examples were adducted.

Okay, I mentioned earlier that we can rotate at the neck joint.

We could also rotate a little bit at our hips.

So for example, this player here is rotating their hips before pitching or bowling a ball and that helps generate power.

But we do much more rotation in our shoulder joint than we do at our hip joint, remember? So another quick check.

Which of the following is an example of rotation? Is the execution of throwing a dart at the elbow joint rotation? Or is B: the ankle joint movement when raising toes towards the tibia to get under a lofted free kick in football, is that rotation? Or is it C: a quarterback's shoulder joint when they're generating power and spin on the ball as they throw it? Well done.

It's C, isn't it? Because actually the execution of throwing a dart at the elbow is extension of the elbow joint, and the ankle joint when you get up on tiptoes, oh no, not on tiptoes.

So the ankle joint, when you try and pull your toes up to grip under the ball to loft it, that would be dorsiflexion.

And then so it leaves us with the quarterback and the rotator cuff muscles that are so important for that throwing action at the shoulder.

Shall we have a little look at a tennis player next? So we've got this wheelchair tennis player who's swinging their arm at the shoulder joint for an overarm serve, and it creates a big combination of flexion and extension, abduction and adduction.

And those four movements combined are known as circumduction.

And actually in this freeze frame, you might actually say, it's in the abducted position 'cause it's out to the side whilst the elbow joint is flexed.

And then perhaps we also need to think about what's going on at the ball toss hand.

It's moving into that, you know, it's flexing up into that position.

So let's do another quick check.

Which of the following is an example of circumduction then? So is it the shoulder joint when bowling in cricket? Is it B: the knee joint when preparing to kick a ball? Is it C: the hip joint when exploding out of the blocks in a 100 metre sprint? That's right, it's the shoulder joint when bowling in cricket.

So that bowl in cricket or back stroke in swimming, at the shoulder joint are the best examples of circumduction in action.

Okay, that brings us to our final practise task of today's lesson.

And for these four images, what I'd like you to do is identify the movement that's occurring at the different joints.

So we've got the right elbow of that swimmer, the right shoulder of the golfer, the right knee of the baseball player, and the right shoulder of the footballer in yellow.

Can you explain why you have selected that terminology by providing a sentence to contextualise your answer? Remember I said that sometimes they're moving from one position to another, or it could be argued that it's abduction.

Okay, let me give you an example.

So with my shoulder here, I could abduct my shoulder up to above my head, but I could also flex my shoulder and it would end up in the same location.

And from here I can make a decision.

Do I want to get my arm back to the side of my body? Do I want to extend it back down here, or do I want to adduct it back down from the side? Or maybe I've combined a whole load of movements and it's circumduction.

So that's why we need to be able to contextualise our answer.

Pause the video now whilst you have a go at that and come back to me when you are ready.

Okay, so let's have a look at the swimmer first.

Hopefully you've identified that it's flexion that's happening at the elbow joint.

And we know that because flexion is when the angle at the joint is decreased, so it's in a bent position.

Then we've got the golfer, what did you come up with here for the right shoulder? This is where the contextualization of it is so important because I would argue that this is circumduction at the shoulder joint 'cause they're drawing a big circle, going from that preparation through to the follow through.

And that's because this person is drawing a big circle with their shoulder joint.

But as I said, you could argue that it's in the flexed position because it's up here in front.

Or maybe even you could argue that it's been abducted and then comes through to adduction.

So make sure you've explained why to justify your marks there.

Another easier one, looking at this baseball player.

So we've got slight flexion at the right knee joint.

Again, really helpful to use the word slight or full flexion.

And flexion is where we decrease the angle at a joint, so it's in that bent position.

And then finally, what about this footballer? So the right shoulder, well it's being abducted, isn't it? So it's lifted up to the side to provide some extra balance as the performer takes that strike.

So abduction is when you move it away from the midline of the body.

And on this one actually, you can also see that plantar flexion of the right foot as it prepares to strike the ball with the laces.

Well done with that task.

It was a tricky one, wasn't it? In particular, the golfer.

So that leaves us just a little bit of time to do a summary.

So from this lesson around the different joints and their movements, we've talked about how joint classification enables different movements to be possible at different joints.

We've talked about how hinge joints at the elbow and the knee only allow flexion and extension, or bending and straightening.

We've also talked about how the term for that, the ankle joint is slightly specialised in that we call it plantar flexion, pointing the toes, or dorsiflexion when you move them back from that position.

Then we've talked about how ball and socket joints at the shoulder and at the hip, well, they allow flexion and extension, but they also allow abduction movement away from the midline, adduction moving them back together.

And then there's a little bit of rotation and circumduction allowed at the hip joint, but the shoulder is much more mobile.

So we need to think of examples in sport when we're rotating and circumducting the shoulder joint.

Well done today.

I hope you've enjoyed that lesson.

And I look forward to seeing you again next time.