20 Time Reflection

Katrina and I chose this topic because it was something that we have experienced and seen first hand. Doing cheer, we both know that just a custom uniform can cost about $1000 and there are other expenses to be paid. As a dancer, Katrina has also had to spend copious amounts of money on dance costumes that she has only worn a couple of times. Our goal was to promote awareness for the cause, collect costumes to donate, help others by these donations, and to work on our planning and organizational skills.

Initially, we did not have a clear vision of where we wanted to go with our idea. After multiple trial and error attempts with ideas such as Instagram, we decided that a fundraiser would be the best idea. At our fundraiser, we would teach a dance class in exchange for costumes donated by the girls that signed up.

At first, scheduling and planning the event was difficult due to our busy and conflicting schedules. We had an original date set, but at the last minute, we realized that it was Easter and so we had to reschedule for a later date. In the end, we were able to find a date that worked for both of us and the day was a success. We had a large turnout of about 25 girls ages 6-13. Each girl brought about two costumes and in the end, we had 50 costumes to donate. After the fundraiser, we began to search for a place to donate these costumes. Not wanting to do an organization such as Good Will due to the fact that they profit from the donations, we began to search for an organization that would donate the costumes right to the source. After a day or so of looking, we discovered Traveling Tutus, an organization out of Florida that donates the costumes that they receive to those who cannot comfortably afford the rising price of dance.

Through this entire process, we learned a lot about scheduling and planning an event. Additionally, we also learned about how to properly advertise and get people to show up for an event. We utilized both flyers and electronics. The flyers helped to get the word out and then people were able to sign up online. Additionally, Katrina and I were able to send an email to the parents and students of the dance classes that Katrina teaches letting the know about our event. We also learned that it is not easy to deal with 25 young girls and so it was essential to plan every minute of our event and fill it with lots of fun games and dancing in order to avoid chaos and to make it fun. This is definitely something I would like to do again. If I had to do it again, I would want to hold more fundraisers and maybe some in different areas in order to try and get the word out even further.

Next, although I will not formally be continuing this challenge, I will always be aware of this issue and will encourage those to donate their old dance costumes or cheer uniforms. In general, I will continue to donate my other clothes and shoes that I no longer wear so that others can benefit from them. It is something so simple to do, and it can make a big difference for those in need.

If I had to give myself a letter grade, it would be an A. I felt like we were always on task while in class, and were able to keep busy. If there was a class period where we could not work on something, we would make a list to plan what we were going to do when we got home or what we needed to do to prepare for the next class. We made sure to follow through with our event, and despite the fallbacks, we held a successful event. I also believe that throughout the entire 20 process we were extremely organized and made sure to have all of our blog posts done.

In our fourth blog post, we included photos and videos from our event. That post can be seen here!

TedTalk Outline

1. our idea and the importance of giving back to this cause
2. what we did
3. planning process
4. our event
5. our take away and what we learned
6. the importance of donations

Unit 8 Reflection

In this unit, we learned all about the muscular system. We began with an overview of the system and talked about some of the functions of this system. Such functions include the movement of bones or fluids and to stabilize the joints. Then we learned about some of the properties of muscle tissue, excitability, contractibility, extensibility, and elasticity. Finally, we talked about muscle classification. Muscles are categorized into four categories, prime movers, anatagonists, synergists, and fixators. We also went over the size, shape, action, number of origins, location, etc.. At the beginning of this unit, we also began a project in which we redesigned a specific joint in our body to make it "better" and help prevent this joint from injury. For example, I chose the wrist joint for my project, in order to redesign the wrist to keep it from breaking. http://hayleysanatomyblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-more-effect-joint.html

Next, we talked about some of the specific muscles that we have throughout the body. In the face, we have the masseter that helps to elevate the mandible. When this muscle relaxes, the jaw falls. In our chest, we have the trapezius that helps to extend the head and elevate or depress the scapula. In our arm, we have the biceps brachii or biceps as well as our triceps brachii or triceps. In our stomach area, we have the rectus abdominus which flexes the abdomen. One muscle that you may not think of is the diaphragm, which is what allows inhalation. In our leg, we have the gluteus maximas that helps to extend and rotate the thigh laterally. One lab that really helped to reinforce this lesson was the chicken lab. In this lab, we were able to dissect a whole chicken and find each of these muscles in the chicken then compare how the chicken muscular system is different from ours. http://hayleysanatomyblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/chicken-dissection-analysis.html

Then, we learned about muscle twitch and the difference between fast and slow twitch. In summary, slow twitch fibers are the ones that give athletes the immense stamina. Slow twitch fibers are very important for sports like marathons, as the muscles are slow to fatigue. However, fast twitch fibers are the muscle fibers that allow athletes to exert their energy all at once. These muscles fibers are crucial for people who do sports such as track, where they are only required to run extremely fast for up to a couple of minutes. What determines fast or slow twitch, however, is your exercise and genetics. In fact, research has shown that specific training does not affect fast or slow twitch. Overall, the key to keeping our muscles healthy relies on exercise, diet, and listening to your body. Lastly, I believe that I am still keeping to my New Years Goals. As the weather has become nicer, I find myself getting outside more and doing exercises outside, such as hiking, swimming, and just simply walking around more. In general, I think I am keeping to a pretty healthy lifestyle. As school comes to an end, I am still trying to end the year on a good note and am still giving my all towards my school work. 

What Happens When You Stretch?

Quotes
"When a muscle is stretched, some of its fibers lengthen, but other fibers may remain at rest. The current length of the entire muscle depends upon the number of stretched fibers"

"One of the reasons for holding a stretch for a prolonged period of time is that as you hold the muscle in a stretched position, the muscle spindle habituates (becomes accustomed to the new length) and reduces its signaling. Gradually, you can train your stretch receptors to allow greater lengthening of the muscles"

"Another reason for holding a stretch for a prolonged period of time is to allow this lengthening reaction to occur, thus helping the stretched muscles to relax. It is easier to stretch, or lengthen, a muscle when it is not trying to contract"

Relate and Review
After reading this article, I thought it was very interesting. In all of the sports that I have done, my coaches have always stressed the importance of stretching, before and after practice. One quote that really stood out to me was the one about why people will hold a stretch for a long period of time. People will do this because eventually, you can train the receptors "to allow greater lengthening of the muscles". For instance, I often do this in cheer. At the beginning of practice when we stretch, we have to go as far down as we can into the splits as hold it for up to five minutes. When I first began to do this, I was not able to go completely down, but the more I practiced and stretched, the farther I was able to get my splits.

Chicken Dissection Analysis

In this lab, we began by unwrapping the chicken, patting it dry and then removing the skin. We started the dissection by making an incision down the midline of the chicken. Then we identified the major muscles, such as the pectoralis major and minor. The pectoralis major is what gives the bird or chicken the power for their flight. We also looked for the tendons at their points of insertion. Next, we cut from the neck to the middle of the back in order to identify the trapezius and the latissimus dorsi. The trapezius muscle helps to pull the chicken's shoulder back, while the latissimus dorsi also extends the wing as well. Then, we extended the wing and cut it off before the shoulder joint. From there, we were able to identify muscles such as the deltoid. Finally, we cut off the thigh of chicken and identified some muscles such as the biceps femoris and the quadriceps femoris. The biceps femoris help to give the legs the power so that the chicken is able to run.

   

The insertion of the tendon is what moves with the contraction of the muscle while the origin is the physical attachment of the tendon. One difference between the muscles of a chicken is that the trapezius in humans is split into two parts. In both chicken and humans, the biceps brachii is used to bend the wing and arm. Lastly, the triceps humeralis is used to extend the arm. 

A More Effect Joint

Abstract

I began this project by choosing my joint. I chose the wrist joint due to my many injuries to the bones in my wrist. After I chose this joint, I did some general research on the what exact bones made up this joint and some of the major ligaments, blood vessels, and arteries in this joint. Once that was done, I began to research how to solve the problem of the common distal radial fracture. I looked up common treatment methods for a severe fracture and these treatments are what sparked my idea, a preventative measure to decrease the chance of a broken radius. 

Main Body

The joint I will be redesigning is the wrist joint, where the ulna and radius meet the carpals. The wrist is made up of several bones, including the distal ends of the ulna and radius, the carpal bones, and the proximal ends of the metacarpal bones. All of these contribute to a wide range of motion such as flexing or extension and pronation or supination. The ligaments in the wrist help to keep the wrist stable while still allowing mobility. Some major ligaments include the radiocarpal ligament and the ulnar collateral ligament which prevent extreme radial deviation.

A common injury to this joint is a distal radius fracture where the epiphysis of the radius sustains an incomplete or complete break. Fracturing your wrist is such a common injury due to the fact that it can happen very easily. For example, one may simply break their wrist from slipping and falling backward, landing with their hand outstretched. Although, wrist injuries can also occur during more serious accidents such as car accidents or falling from a high distance, like a ladder. Radial fractures can also occur in sports. For instance, wrist fractures are a very common injury in competitive cheerleading due to the constant pressure and strain that is put on these bones during stunting.

My proposed solution to this very common injury is to add additional ligaments behind the radius in order to prevent a fracture. Adding these ligaments would give more support to the bones and would also help to keep the bones aligned. If you were to fall and land with your hand outstretched, these extra ligaments would help to absorb the shock of the fall and would take some of the weight off of the bone. This solution mirrors the technique used to set major fractures. When the bone is so broken that it cannot be realigned without surgery, doctors go into the part of the wrist that is broken and must attach plates and metal screws and pins to keep the bone together. The additional ligaments would be a preventative measure for the extreme fracture. These ligaments would receive their blood from the radial artery and vein. Due to the thicker and more protective nature of the ligaments, some, but a very little range of motion would be lost.

Before After

Discussion

I found my inspiration for the redesign of the wrist joint after multiple breaks to both my ulna and my radius. I arrived at the idea for my design after researching what is done to treat a severe fracture to the radius. From my own personal experience, and from the help of the internet, I learned that in an extreme fracture, a surgery must be done where doctors reattach the bone with metal pins, screws, and plates. At that point, I tried to think how the fracture could be prevented in the first place. For my solution, I proposed that ligaments should be added in place of where the screws and plates would be if the bone were to be broken. The ligaments would act as a preventative measure that would help the radius from breaking by absorbing some of the shock and helping to keep the bones aligned.  

As I created my “better joint” a problems that came to mind with my idea was the change in the range of motion. With the addition of ligaments, this could possibly limit the range of motion as the wrist would lose some of the mobility that it had before. For example, the wrist may not be able to bend as far backward as it was able to without the extra ligaments.

Since this treatment is not possible and we cannot create a more effective joint, there are a couple things that you can do to prevent a wrist fracture. On a dietary level, make sure that you are consuming enough calcium as well as vitamin D since both are crucial for healthy and strong bones. Both vitamins are easy to get. An easy source of calcium is milk and vitamin D can easily be received from the sun. If you are a more clumsy person, it is important that you make sure to wear sensible shoes that will not cause you to slip and make sure to avoid slippery surfaces. Finally, if you have had fractures in the past or have a history of osteoporosis in your family, you may want to tape your wrists or wear a brace while doing sports or exercise that may put excessive strain on your wrist.

Works Cited

http://uconnsportsmed.uchc.edu/injury/handwrist/distal_radius.html

http://www.assh.org/handcare/Anatomy/Tendons#Wrist

http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00412

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1899456-overview?pa=HYIFKVOLQFwElrttBO7jyQusMRppSPOP1UrlqAUgZwW4dKA2GBG3IifckPzL49GOW9AeYsJObVsqaa3

Introduction to the Human Body: The Essentials of Anatomy and Physiology

by Gerard J. Tortora and Bryan Derrickson