Lesson video

Hello, welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Mr. Swayze, and I'm really looking forward to working with you today.

So today's lesson is called "Movements Possible at Different Joints," and it comes from the unit "Anatomy and Physiology: The Musculoskeletal System." In this lesson, we're gonna be unpicking the different joints of the human body and what movements are possible.

So you may have come across terms like flexion and extension, and I wonder if you can figure out what movements are possible at different types of joints around the body.

So by the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to describe the movements that occur at different types of joint.

And there are lots of keywords that we'll be exploring during the lesson.

Some of them included here, so flexion, extension, abduction, abduction, but we will also be covering rotation, circumduction, plantar-flexion, and dorsiflexion.

So you might want to pause the video now to make a note of these, but we will also be unpicking them during the lesson in more detail.

We've broken up the lesson into three parts.

So to start off with, we will be describing those anatomical terms for different movements, so really deep diving into those words of flexion, extension, which I'm sure you've heard before, but also abduction, adduction, rotation, circumduction, plantar-flexion, and dorsiflexion.

Then we're gonna identify the movements possible at different types of joints.

So we'll be identifying the shoulder joint, the hip joint, the knee joint, the elbow joint, the neck joint, the ankle joint, and also the wrist joint.

And then finally, in the third part of today's lesson, we'll be analysing the movements possible in different sporting examples.

So I hope you're ready.

Let's get cracking.

As I've said, anatomical terms are used to describe different types of movement at our joints, and they help us describe in a better way what's going on.

So these include flexion, extension, or as you may have heard them before as bending and straightening.

Abduction and adduction.

I wonder, do you know what those two words mean at all? Rotation, circumduction, and then also plantar-flexion and dorsiflexion.

I wonder, can you demonstrate and explain what any of these look like? Well, let's unpick them together, shall we? So flexion is where you decrease the angle at a joint.

We often refer to this as bending, but that is less obvious at ball and socket joints.

And it can happen at the shoulder, the elbow, the hip, and the knee joint.

So let's have a little look what that looks like.

And in fact, I can pull up my skeleton here to help see these in action, but we've got elbow flexion, we've got another obvious one of knee flexion, and then these two are slightly tougher.

So shoulder flexion is when you move your arm up in front and hip flexion is where you move your hip up in front.

And actually, if I just extend the knee joint and extend the elbow joint for a moment, so what we've got here is a position where the skeleton has got hip flexion and shoulder flexion.

And can you see that spells like the letter F, a capital F? And that's how I remember that this is the flex position, whereas bringing them back down to the side is that extended position.

So that brings us nicely into the next part where we look at what extension is.

So that's when you increase the angle at a joint, and we refer to this as straightening, but it can happen at the shoulder, elbow, hip, and knee joints.

So let's see that again.

We've got elbow extensions, that'll be straightening of the elbow.

We've got shoulder, sorry, knee extension, so straightening of the knee.

Shoulder extension, so bringing that arm back down to the side of the body.

And hip extension, so straightening your hip.

But actually, we can see in this illustration, it's gone into hip hyperextension, so beyond straight, and it's the bum muscles that are pulling that through, so the gluteals.

Okay, and then I mentioned earlier, didn't I, those two terms, plantar-flexion and dorsiflexion.

And actually, they refer to the special term for flexion at the ankle joint.

So it's called plantar-flexion when we point our toe.

So this skeleton's not very good at doing this actually, but if I was to try and point the toes, that is called plantar-flexion.

And then when you lift the toes back up, pointing up towards the tibia, up towards the shin, that is called dorsiflexion.

And Jun here says, "Well, I remember this because plantar-flexion starts with a P and it's a P for pointing your toe." So that may help you too.

Can you demonstrate plantar-flexion? So stand up and have a go at plantar flexing.

What happens when you do? That's right, you raise up onto your tiptoes, don't you? So let's do a quick check.

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

e.

flexion, extension, abduction, and abduction combined? What do you think? That's right.

It's A, isn't it, decreasing the angle at the joint? And a nice way to remember that is when we flex our elbow joint by flexing our biceps, so we're bending and decreasing the angle at that elbow joint.

Okay, let's look at abduction then.

Well, that's when you move your limb away from the midline of the body.

It happens at the hip and at the shoulder joints.

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

Well, let's hope we don't.

So you can see abduction at the shoulder and at the hip in this outward phase of the star jump.

So again, with this skeleton, as the shoulders move out to the side and the hips move out to the side, that is that abduction position.

And in fact, all the way up to the side would be fully abducted.

This is, I guess, a slight abduction.

Conversely, adduction is when you move the limbs back towards the midline of the body.

So it happens at the hip and the shoulder joint again.

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

So we can see it happening here.

I bring the legs back together towards the midline of the body, so towards the centre of the body, adducted, adding those limbs back close to the body.

So the recovery phase of a star jump is an example of that.

Let's do another quick check.

Which of the following is the correct definition for adduction? Is it A, decreasing the angle at a joint? Is it B, spreading your fingers apart in 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, isn't it? It's movement towards the midline of the body.

And actually for B, when you spread your fingers apart, that is considered abduction.

You're abducting your fingers.

Okay, let's look at rotation then.

So this is when you turn a limb around its long axis.

So it's almost like a bit of a circular movement.

I'm doing it here with my finger as I point at you.

So I'm rotating those joints in my shoulder and I can also do it a little bit at my hip, but not as easily.

And it can also happen at the pivot joint of the neck.

So a really nice example of this between the atlas and the axis, so the top two vertebrae of your spine.

And when I rotate, I turn to the sides.

Have a go at that to help you remember.

So rotating right and rotating left.

Next one, this I'm sure will be a new word to you, so that idea of circumduction.

So that's when you turn a circular motion around a joint and it's when that movement occurs in more than one plane.

So it's actually a combination of flexion, extension, abduction, and abduction.

So if I do this big circular movement with my arm either forwards or backwards, I am circumducting it.

I mean, a part of that, so on the way up, it would I guess be called flexion.

And then as I turn it round here and continue it down the side, you could argue that that's a little bit of adduction as I bring it back to my body, but the whole movement combined is called circumduction.

Let's have a quick look at a very specialist type of joint at the wrist.

So it looks a little bit like a ball and socket joint, doesn't it? But actually, there's like a flat surface.

So unlike where the ball fits into the socket at the hip or at the shoulder joint, the wrist joint is more of a concave surface or ellipsoid surface where it attaches.

And you can have a go at this.

Now, you can feel lots of movements at your wrist joint, can you? And actually that is flexion and extension, abduction and abduction when you wave.

And when you combine those four movements together, we now know that that's called circumduction, don't we? Let's do a quick check.

Which of the following is the correct definition of circumduction? Is it A, the action of pointing the toes in a downward 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, i.

e.

flexion, extension, abduction, and abduction combined? What do you think? That's right, it's D, isn't it? It's a combination of those four movements.

So that brings us nicely into the first task of today's lesson.

So I would like you to add labels to the diagrams provided to identify if the following movements are occurring.

So we've got the execution of that chest pass in netball and then we've got a sprint start, exploding out of the blocks.

And I want you to see, can you recognise flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, rotation, circumduction, plantar-flexion, or dorsiflexion happening? And can you label where you're seeing it? Remember to mention what joint you're seeing it at.

So it might be that there's flexion at the elbow for, example.

And sometimes I use the term slight flexion or slight extension, et cetera, to help illustrate whether it's only partially flexed or extended.

And then the second part of this task, I'd like you to provide a definition for each of the key terms. Pause the video whilst you do that and come back to me when you're ready.

Well done.

Let's see how you got on then.

So here we can see extension and adduction at the left shoulder in that preparation phase.

We can also see flexion of that left elbow.

And we know that uses the biceps muscle, don't we? And we can see extension at the wrist.

So the wrist is in this position.

And then in the execution phase, we can see flexion and adduction at the shoulder joints.

We can see extension at the elbow as the ball is released.

And we can also see flexion at the wrists to follow through.

So that's almost moving from extension to flexion, and we'll come back to that movement again in a minute.

What about the second diagram then, the sprint start? Well, we can see plantar-flexion at the ankle joint, or actually I would call that slight plantar-flexion or it's about to plantar flex because the toes aren't quite pointed yet, are they? Then we've got extension at the back hip, so the back hip is straightening out, and it may even move into hyperextension if it goes beyond straight, like in the example we had earlier, we've got extension of the back knee.

So the back knee is straightening.

And we've got flexion of the front knee, so that drive knee is flexing or bending to take that first stride out in front.

The shoulder, we've got the right shoulder, that back arm is extending, isn't it? So it's nearly fully extended.

And we've got extension and adduction at the shoulder.

Really important we keep the arms adducted.

We don't want them flailing out to the side.

So there shouldn't be any abduction when you're sprinting 'cause that's wasting energy moving laterally.

Then we've got flexion at the shoulder joint of that lead arm, and slight flexion of that lead elbow, and it will continue to flex further as we move in that hips to lips arm movement, hips to lips.

Okay, and what about the definitions then? Did you get these right? Because you'll definitely need these going forwards.

So flexion is decreasing the angle at a joint.

We sometimes call that bending.

Extension is increasing the angle at a joint.

We sometimes call that straightening.

Abduction is movement away from the midline of the body.

Remember that abducted by aliens.

Adduction is moving back towards the midline of the body.

Remember adding the limbs back together.

Rotation is where you rotate the limb around its long axis.

It's a kind of circular movement where the body parts turn whilst the rest remain still.

We'll explore later when you use that in sport.

Then circumduction is that big circular motion that occurs in more than one plane and it combines flexion, extension, abduction, and adduction.

And finally, plantar-flexion is the specific term for pointing your toes at the ankle joint, and dorsiflexion is then when you lift those toes back towards the shin.

Well done if you've got all of those.

And if you didn't, just make a note of them now.

Let's move into the second part of today's lesson then where we're gonna identify the movements possible at different joints.

So we've touched on some of this already, but hinge joints at the knee and at the elbow only allow flexion and extension.

So because of the very nature of a hinge joint, they can only bend, flex, and straighten, extend.

Can you stand up for me and flex or bend and then extend your right elbow and your right knee at the same time? What does that look like? Well, hopefully it looks like this.

So you've got a bent leg and a bent arm.

And then we looked at the ankle joint, didn't we, and how that's a special kind of hinge joint that allows plantar-flexion and and dorsiflexion.

Can you remember the difference? Well, let's stand up then and can you plantar-flex or point your toes? What happens when you plantar-flex? Well, you raise up, don't you, onto your tiptoes.

And then dorsiflex is when you lower yourself back down again.

Can you demonstrate that for me so that you know what that movement looks like in practise? Okay, so hopefully it looks like that movement there, and we tried to do it with this skeleton, but he's got very stiff ankle joints, this skeleton, that movement there.

Plantar-flex, dorsiflex.

Then we were gonna look at ball and socket joints.

So the hip and the shoulder as we know are ball and socket joints.

They allow that flexion and extension.

And we remember, didn't we, that capital F position when your hip and your shoulder are in the flexed position.

So this weightlifter here is down in a squatted position with flexion at their hip and shoulder joint and they're gonna extend their hip as they straighten up and stand up.

So can you stand up for me and flex your right shoulder and your right hip joint and hold that position? Watch your balance.

That's it, so it should look like this, standing with your arm out in front and your leg out in front, so they are flexed.

Now extend them back down and regain your balance on the floor.

Okay, what about abduction and abduction? Well, we know that can happen at the ball and socket joints as well.

So the hip and the shoulder allow this movement away from the midline and then back together again.

So can you stand up and abduct both your hip and both your shoulder joints please and hold that position? Fully abduct it.

That's right, so it should look a little bit like this or maybe you've got your legs even wider apart, but that's that full abduction at the shoulder with the hands above the head.

And then adduction, of course, would be pulling them back together again to get back into that start position.

We also discussed earlier about circumduction.

Well, that can happen at ball and socket joints at the hip and at the shoulder.

And they also allow rotation, don't they? Can you remember the difference? Well, stand up and circumduct your right shoulder for me.

That's right, that should look like that big circular movement.

C for circumduct, C for circular.

Whereas rotation was more about drawing a dot at that shoulder joint.

And we can also rotate at pivot joints, can't we? And we talked about how we can do that at the neck, the top two vertebrae, the atlas and the axes.

So if you rotate your neck joint left and then right, it should look a little bit like this.

And then we touched on the condyloid joint, didn't we? So the condyloid joint at the wrist and how that allows flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, and circumduction.

Let's do those a little bit slower.

So can you flex your right wrist for me and extend your left wrist? Can you figure out the difference? Which one is increasing the angle and which is decreasing? Does it look like this? So here, we've got that position of flexion and I do that when I wave goodbye to the ball in basketball.

Whereas extension of that left wrist, I do that when I'm getting in a handstand position.

Okay, that brings us nicely into the second task for today's lesson.

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

And then in the second part of this, I'd like you to name and describe the movements possible at the ankle joint.

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

Well done, so hopefully, yours will look a little bit like this.

And I've actually put in brackets H for hinge or B&S for ball and socket, or P for pivot, or C for condyloid, the joint at the wrist to help me with this.

So I know that flexion and extension can happen at hinge joints, so that's the elbow and the knee.

And then at the shoulder and the hip, they're both ball and socket joints and they allow the full range of movement.

So flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, rotation, and circumduction, although you don't actually get much rotation at your hip because of how deep it fits into the socket.

And then at the neck, well, that only allows rotation, looking side to side.

And then at the wrist joint, we've got flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, and also circumduction, so those four movements combined.

How did you do with that? And in fact, you could go one step further and replace the tick with the name of the muscle that causes that movement.

So for example, flexion at the elbow, the prime mover, the agonist, the muscle responsible for that is your biceps muscle.

So I wonder how many of these you could replace the tick with the name of the muscle or muscles responsible.

And in the second part of this task, I wanted you to name and describe the movements possible at the ankle joint.

Well, the ankle allows plantar-flexion or pointing the toes, and dorsiflexion or lifting the toes up towards the tibia, doesn't it? Well done if you've got both of those too.

Moving us nicely into the third part of today's lesson where we're gonna analyse movements in sporting examples.

And I've mentioned a few already.

So during the downward phase of a bicep curl in weightlifting, the athlete is performing extension at the elbow, aren't they? They're straightening the elbow.

And this is why we often talk about the upward phase or downward phase or preparation or execution phase to help make sure we're talking about the right part of that movement.

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

So you can't just say in weightlifting, you do flexion of the elbow because it depends in what part and when you're lifting the weight in what way that it would be flexion at the elbow.

Let's do a quick check.

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, the elbow action when preparing to perform a chest pass in netball? Or is it C, standing on tiptoes in a dance performance? What do you think? Well done, so it's B, isn't it? The elbow action when preparing to perform a chest pass is bending at the elbow, so that is flexion, whereas the execution of kicking a ball is when the knee is extending.

And tiptoes is called plantar-flexion, isn't it? So when a footballer strikes a ball and follows through, they perform full extension at the knee joint and also flexion at their hip joint.

You can see it here.

So flexion of the hip joint to lift the leg up in front and extension of the knee joint.

And in fact, what can you see happening at the right ankle joint? This is a really nice example, isn't it, of plantar-flexion.

So pointing the toes in order to strike the ball with the laces.

What about the left ankle then in order to hold that stable balanced position on the floor? Well, that's slight dorsiflexion isn't it? Let's do another quick check.

Which 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 the 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? So which of those is extension? Sorry, which is not extension? That's right, C, that movement out to the side.

And can you remember what that was called then? We can see it here as well, can't we? So in the iron cross position in gymnastics, so when you're on the high rings, you gotta hold both shoulder joints in that abducted position, same as a goalkeeper diving out to the side, it's that abducted position at the shoulder joint.

Let's do another quick check.

Which of the following is also an example of abduction? Is it the execution phase of the leg kick at the hip joint in swimming breaststroke? Is it B, standing with arms by your side and feet together to start a floor routine in gymnastics? Or is it C, standing on tiptoes in a dance performance? That's right, at that execution phase of the leg kick in breaststroke, we are abducting the hip out before we pull it back together into that adducted position.

And in fact, here we see a swimmer swimming butterfly.

And as they reach their arms out away from the midline of the body, they're exploding out of the water to swim butterfly.

And that's referred to as abduction at the shoulder, isn't it? Another check.

Which of the following is not an example of adduction? Is it A, jumping arms and legs back together during a star jump? Is it the 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? Which is not adduction? I hope you put C there because when we get in this kind of T position, imagine the javelin in my hand here, I'm preparing to throw the javelin so I abduct my shoulder joint in order to then execute my throw.

Let's have a little look at this baseball player.

So they are rotating their hips before pitching or bowling the ball and that helps generate power.

So twisting at the hips, but also at the trunk.

Another check.

Which of the following is an example of rotation? Is it A, execution of throwing a dart at the elbow joint? Is it B, ankle joint movement when raising toes towards the tibia to get under a lofted free kick in football? Or is it C, a quarterback's shoulder joint to generate power and spin on the ball? It might help to perform these three different movements and think, oh, is that rotation, is it moving around its long axis? That's right, so it's a quarterback's shoulder joint generating power, and actually, the rotator cuff muscles in the back of the shoulder here take a real hammering in a quarterback because they do so much throw in and rotation to try and get spin on the ball.

Let's see this example of a wheelchair tennis player, so they're swinging their arm up at the shoulder joint for that overarm serve.

So that's a combination of flexion, extension, abduction, and adduction.

And we know that that's called circumduction, don't we? So this rotation movement at the shoulder, but we can also break that down and say, well currently, that left arm that's throwing the ball up has gone through flexion to get in that position.

And meanwhile, that right arm with the racket in it is abducted out to the side a little bit at the shoulder, and, of course, flexed at the elbow as well.

And then as the ball is struck, that's when the circumduction really happens.

Another quick check.

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

And I actually think if you want to give an example of circumduction, bowling in cricket or backstroke arm action in swimming are the best two examples.

So that brings us to our last task for today's lesson.

I'd like you to identify the movements occurring at the following joints.

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

Can you also explain why that is the correct terminology by providing a sentence to contextualise your answer? So for example, the elbow is extending or straightening during the execution of the chest pass as the angle at the joint is increasing.

Pause the video now whilst you do that and come back to me when you're ready.

Okay, so we've got the swimmer first.

This was an easy one.

So we've got flexion at the right elbow and the explanation of that is that flexion is when the angle of the joint is decreased.

I.

e.

it's bent.

We can really see that.

The second one was a little bit tougher.

So I would argue that this is circumduction at the right shoulder joint 'cause it's moving in a big circular motion.

But you could also argue a case for it being perhaps in that preparation phase it was abducted.

And then in this execution phase, it is abducted back together in the follow through.

So you may have said adduction of the shoulder joint.

Then let's look at this baseball player.

Well, I hope you've got slight flexion of that right knee because flexion is when the angle at the joint is decreased and you can see it bending there, can't you, as he turns to hit.

What about this right shoulder in the footballer? Well, it's abduction, isn't it? So it's up to the side to provide some balance as he's striking the ball and that's when it's moved away from the midline of the body.

And you can also see plantar-flexion, can't you, in that right foot preparing to kick the ball with the laces.

Well done if you've got all of those correct.

So that gives me just enough time to summarise today's lesson.

So the joint classification enables different movements to be possible at different joints.

I.

e.

ball and socket joints allow different movements to hinge joints, which are different to condyloid joints, and different to the pivot joint at the neck.

So hinge joints, and we've got those at the elbow and the knee, haven't we? They allow flexion and extension.

And then the ankle, which is a complex type of hinge joint, has what we call plantar-flexion and dorsiflexion, so specialist terms there at the ankle joint.

Ball and sockets at the shoulder and hip allow flexion and extension.

They also allow abduction and adduction.

And when we combine those four movements together, it's called circumduction, isn't it? Another keyword from today's lesson.

Or if you are drawing a dot, it is called rotation.

Finally, we looked at that pivot joint at the neck and how it allows rotation.

And we also looked at the condyloid joint of the wrist that allows flexion, extension, abduction, and adduction.

So that's a nice time for me to wave goodbye from this lesson.

Well done, I hope you've enjoyed it, and I look forward to seeing you again next time.