Lesson video

Hi everybody.

Welcome to today's lesson.

Today we're gonna be learning about planes and axes of movement.

We're gonna have some fun doing so and you're all gonna do brilliantly.

By the end of the lesson we will be able to name and describe the three planes of movement and the three axes of rotation.

And our keywords are very much linked to our three planes.

Now you may want to pause the recording and jot these down.

However, we are gonna talk about each plane individually, and we do need to know that an axes is described or defined as a line, an imaginary line, in which a body or a body part can turn.

Our lesson today is gonna be divided into three sections.

The first one we're gonna talk about the planes of movement and how they work within the body.

Then we're gonna look at those three axes of rotation, at least those three of each.

And that's quite nice for our last part of our lesson 'cause we're gonna link those names and understand how the planes of movement link with the axes of rotation.

So let's get started on our planes of movement.

I want you to imagine, like this person here and Sofia's doing the same, that if you stand in what's known as this anatomical position with your hands by the side, how many lines could you almost draw through yourself that would divide your body into equal halves? Have a little think about that.

Now was your answer three? And if so, well done.

Don't worry if not.

But actually there are three planes of movement and that's basically three imaginary lines or an imaginary flat surface that could go through your body and then it would divide the body into two halves.

So you can see here in this diagram, that flat surface has been put through kind of the middle of the body and has divided that body into left and right.

So with this movement, with this plane, sorry, that individual will be able to go along that flat surface, so they'll be able to move forwards and backwards.

Now this line or this flat surface has now moved and is in a slightly different position.

And we can see that that individual has been divided into front and back.

So we've still got the halves, but you've got the front half of the body and then the back half of the body.

So if we were to follow along with that line or that surface, we would move sideways or side to side.

And there's one more way of dividing the body into halves.

And it's this one.

So in this instance we can see now that the flat surface has gone through the middle or through the centre of the torso and that's divided the body into upper and lower, or top and bottom half.

And if we were to follow along with that plane, we would probably have to go along its surface and we would rotate like I've just done now.

So movement on this plane would be rotation.

Now each of these planes has a specific name.

So the first one that we spoke about is known as the sagittal plane.

So I'm going to take a sweet here.

You may recognise this type of sweet.

It's a really good one to use because it almost looks the same position that we were just stood in, or we saw that person stood in when Sofia was trying to divide the body into halves.

And if we were to use a simple bit of card, and I've used my plastic ruler here, and I've just divided our sweet into left and right.

And notice this bit of card now is sitting down the middle, which means I can move that forwards and backwards.

So this is our sagittal plane.

With a similar kind of, same sweet, only I've divided this now into front and back.

So you can see that piece of paper is sitting right down the middle and has got our body into front and back halves.

So if we were to move along with the piece of card or the piece of paper, we would move sideways this time.

And that plane is our frontal plane.

And last but not least, different sweet, same brand, you can see there that I've now turned that sweet into upper and lower.

So this piece of paper, piece of card here, is sitting.

So we've got the top half of the body and the bottom half of the body.

So if I was to follow along with the piece of paper, hopefully you can see what I'm doing there, I would rotate.

And this plane is known as the transverse plane.

So three key terms there: sagittal, frontal and transverse plane.

Quick checkpoint.

We've got here a description or a definition about a plane.

So we've learned and we've seen through my bits of card that that's a flat surface and it goes through the body.

But what is allowed to happen as a result? What did I show you happening once we'd seen those sweets be divided into those halves? Absolutely.

That dictates the movement.

So I showed you forward and backwards movement, I showed you side to side, and also that rotation.

So if we just remind ourselves of our description, the sagittal plane was our first one.

So when we can see our imaginary flat surface divided into left and right, we've then got our frontal plane, that was the one I kinda had to flip with you, so we've got front and back.

And then finally we've got our last one, which is the transverse plane when we've got that top and bottom.

Now if we were to step forwards and backwards, it's a little bit like doing that, I'm going back from the screen, I'm going forwards.

That would just be using the sagittal plane.

So if we link that to sporting movement, that could be really simply getting a ball and moving forward with it in rugby, or it could be then you're sat in your wheelchair and you're putting that ball into the lap and you're dribbling in that game of wheelchair basketball.

Either way there's that forward and backwards movement.

So there's that movement along the sagittal plane.

Now, using your body, what would that movement look like in the frontal plane? Now, like me, did you step side to side as I'm doing now? And if you did, well done.

Now can we add that layer of linking it to sport? And what sporting examples can you think of where you would move from side to side? Now it could be that it couldn't be you moving but it could be your arms and legs moving.

So it could be that star jump type movement.

It could be that you're a goalkeeper on your line and you're stepping sideways.

We know in football, in particular, if it's like a penalty, they can't come off the line but they might move their body sideways to try and put off that person that's taking the penalty.

And they're examples of movement in that frontal plane.

Now what about this time if we think about the transverse plane? Use your body now and can you demonstrate movement within that transverse plane? Did you rotate like I'm doing? And if so, well done.

That is movement along the transverse plane.

What are some sporting examples of that? Maybe you thought about in that dance when they actually do rotate as part of a pirouette in ballet or in different genres where they rotate the whole body as part of their movement patterns.

It could even be like when you're rotating to release the discus in athletics.

So our three planes are being shown there.

Which one of them is the frontal plane? I'll give you five seconds to decide.

Well done, it is.

It's this one here 'cause we've got front and back.

A good way of remembering the sagittal, which is image B, could be S for sagittal, S for side and side.

And then the other one, A is the transverse plane.

T for transverse, T for top and bottom.

So let's take that key learning of our planes of movement and go into our first task.

Now we see this individual here, she's stood in that anatomical position that we heard Sofia asking about at the start of the lesson.

What I'd like you to do is use that image and draw on our three planes of movement.

once you've drawn them on, label each of them correctly and just provide a description of each plane.

Pause the recording and come back to me when you're ready.

So how did you do? We can see here that our three planes have been drawn on this image.

We have that sagittal plane.

S for sagittal, side and side, divides that body into left and right.

We can see here we've got that frontal plane.

F for frontal, front and back, divides the body into front and back.

And finally one that you could argue looks like a skirt sitting really high, is that transverse plane.

T for transverse, T for top and bottom.

So these are our three planes of movement.

Now we feel confident with them, we're gonna go with that magic number of three, but now we're gonna look at those axes of rotation, and we'll still use examples from the human body.

So we're gonna start here with our gymnast.

We can see here she's almost doing a back flip, as we would reference.

That could be in isolation or she could be doing it as part of a tumbling sequence.

And often this is the start of where they start to tumble and push themselves into the air to do rotations before they land.

Now Alex is absolutely right here.

Let's look what Alex is saying.

"The athlete is tumbling backwards.

So that has to be using that sagittal plane of movement." Well done, Alex, that is absolutely correct.

But then Sam's saying, "Okay, I need to add an imaginary line," 'cause that's what an axis is.

And that axis will show how the athlete is rotating.

And where would she draw that? What do you think? Now what Sam did is exactly that.

She drew that line there going through the athlete's hips.

So going from side to side.

And that is the line in which that body, her whole body in this point, is being able to rotate.

Now that axis, if we show it on our individual here, that is going through the hips from side to side.

So if we use our sweet again, and probably simpler, a cocktail stick, 'cause that stick can represent that imaginary line.

What we would do at this point is we would go through the hips and go from to side.

So what would happen now is just like our athlete doing a back flip, I can rotate backwards.

I could also rotate forwards.

And what we have there is the frontal axis.

Now, a question for you at this point, how many other lines could you possibly add to that diagram that would allow that whole body to rotate? Now, from our learning outcome, we know that the answer to that is three in total.

So it would've been two other lines.

So let's look at those two others.

We know we've got our frontal and we know that goes through the hips.

A second imaginary line is this one here.

So if I show you with my sweets again, and hopefully you can see it from the image.

Here's our 3D body.

This time I'm gonna go from the front through to the back.

So I'm almost gonna go through the stomach, through the belly button.

And as you can see there, if I rotate now, I'll do it that way so it's clear and you can't see my hands.

I'm actually rotating sideways, a little bit like you would do in a cartwheel.

And this is known as the sagittal axis.

and that a good way of remembering that is through the belly button or through the stomach.

And lastly we've got, at the axis again, but this time going from the top of the body, all the way through and coming out of the bottom.

So you've got from top to bottom.

Now we call this the vertical axis and it runs head to toe.

And you can see that if I start to rotate, we've almost got the rotation a little bit like we discussed earlier with the pirouette and the discus thrower.

So which of these following axis of rotation runs from head to toe? Is it the vertical, the sagittal or the frontal? Five seconds to decide.

Very well done.

That is actually the vertical axis.

So the one that we just finished off there through our sweet, which is running from head to toe.

Okay, does our sagittal axis, does that run from side to side through the hips? Is that true or false? I completely agree.

That is false.

And the reason that's false is that's actually given as a description of the frontal axis.

The sagittal axis is the one where it moves through the stomach from front to back, like we did here or through that belly button.

So we've got three athletes here.

We have an athlete that's doing a pirouette in dance.

We've got our gymnast that's doing a back flip, and then we've got another gymnast that's doing a cartwheel.

What I'd like you to do on these three actions is label the axis of rotation and describe where it is located on their body.

Pause the recording and come back to me when you're ready.

Really well done if, for our dancer, you showed that as being that vertical axis, and that line would be running right through the middle of the body from head to toe and allowing that full rotation in a pirouette.

For our gymnast, that line now is going through the hips and that's that frontal axis.

And then finally you've got that sagittal axis, that one that's going through the stomach from front to back and allowing that athlete to be able to rotate and rotate sideways, as my body is starting to lean now to show you where that rotation would take place.

So we have our three planes and we have our three axes of rotation.

Sometimes those words can get easily mixed up and jumbled up.

So we're gonna link them together for our last part of the lesson to try and make them memorable or easier to remember.

And what's nice about these planes and axes is they can be paired together.

Hopefully you would've sensed that, that through some of the similarities that I was explaining when we were given those sporting actions.

So the sagittal plane, that can be linked with the frontal axis.

Alright, so remember that was that forward and backward movement and that forward and backward rotation.

The frontal plane is paired with the sagittal axis.

Now that's very easy to get confused 'cause there's real similarities with the one I've just shared with you.

But that frontal plane was, remember, that front and back, and then that sagittal axis, if we think now I can only move sideways, that sagittal axis is the one going through the stomach.

So I'm still moving sideways, but I'm also rotating in the same way where I would do in a cartwheel.

And finally that transverse plane.

We'd already looked at it earlier 'cause we'd started to rotate it.

So that's paired with our vertical axis.

So let's see this on our images to try and help us remember this.

So there's our sagittal plane and we now are adding our frontal axis.

With our frontal plane, we're adding our sagittal axis, going through that stomach.

And lastly, we've got our transverse plane and we're adding on our vertical axis.

Might be a good time to pause the recording here and just take note of those six things that we've now paired together to give us three things, three memorable things of where we're remembering that plane and axis.

Okay, let's have a look at this then and see if we can remember that.

Which of the following is paired with the frontal plane? And it would be so easy to think frontal axis, which is A, because it's the same name, but actually it's not.

The frontal plane is paired with the sagittal axis.

So that was B because we can see that line of rotation there is going through the stomach from front to back.

So which of the planes in this list, the sagittal, the frontal, and the transverse, is linked with the frontal axis? Again, it could be easier to think about the frontal plane, but hopefully like me, you've ticked A 'cause that's the sagittal plane.

So as a final task, could we complete this table? We've got bits missing, but what it's doing is it's allowing us to link the pairs together.

So which plane with each axes of rotation, and then think about that whole body action that is a good sporting example.

Now what we would like you to do in that table, and provide some space to do so, is also make a description of each of those, each plane and each axes.

Pause the recording and come back to me when you're ready.

Okay, how did we do? So on the first line in this table, the sagittal plane is linked with the frontal axis.

And we already had our back flip as that whole body action, that sporting movement.

We've also got the descriptions through there.

So that sagittal is divided into left and right, and the frontal axis is through the hips, running from side to side.

The frontal plane is linked with the sagittal axis.

So the F for frontal, division of front and back, sagittal, S for sagittal, through the stomach, through the belly button.

And our cartwheel was our sporting example of rotation.

And finally we had transverse, which is T for transverse, T for top and bottom, divided into top and bottom, and then rotating around that vertical axis, which runs from head to toe.

And the pirouette or anything that involves that whole body rotation was an example of that whole body action.

Okay, let's summarise what we've learned about planes and axes of movement.

So we know a plane, now, is an imaginary flat surface, and we showed that through our sweet with that simple bit of card.

And when we moved along that card, that was showing us the plane of movement in which that movement was taking place.

There are three planes, remember, magic number of three.

We talked about sagittal, divided into side and side or left and right, frontal, which divides the body into front and back.

And finally transverse, T for transverse, divided into top and bottom.

What was a nice, memorable way of linking this with the axis of rotation is each plane has an axis pair, or is paired, sorry, with an axis of rotation.

Remember that axis is also imaginary, but rather than it being a flat surface, it's a line which passes through the body and dictates the way that the body is rotating.

So with the sagittal plane, that was paired with the frontal axis, the frontal plane was paired with the sagittal axis, and finally the transverse plane was linked with the vertical axis.

You might now, as part of your learning, consider how you could maybe make a rhyme to link those planes and axes.

Good luck with that if you do.

Thank you for joining me on today's lesson and I look forward to working with you on the next one.