Brain BREAK! presents: Movement Terminology.
These are three of the movement categories that I have had the most difficulty remembering. I hope they help you, too!
First of all, supination versus pronation. The protractor and supinator muscles are tricky enough to find, right?
- Supination. This is the anatomical position of the forearms, with the palms facing the onlooker. Supine is another way to describe a “face up” position. If you are to supinate your forearms, you might look like you are accepting a bowl of soup in your hands. An alternate way to remember this is that, when someone is super, you offer them a low-five.
- Pronation. The opposite. Prone is a way to describe a “face down” position. The forearms twist away from anatomical position. These words, like prone, also apply to body positioning as a whole. To lie prone is to lie on your stomach. This would make you prone to being eaten by animals!
Next up is adduction versus abduction. I have had a student refer to the latter specifically as “A-B-duction,” making sure to emphasize the B. I found this helpful! Keep in mind that these can look similar to medial and lateral rotation in diagrams. These are more straightforward, however, with the body moving on a frontal/coronal plane.
- Adduction. Limbs move toward your midline, appearing more at-rest. A person standing still says, “This adds to a sense of relaxation.”
- Abduction. Limbs move away from the midline, or outward. A person is doing jumping jacks with their arms lifted over their head and legs spread, off the ground. They shout, “Work it! Work your abs!”
Fun fact: There is also a difference between adsorption and absorption!
Lastly, extension versus flexion. I have struggled with this one because diagrams can appear contradictory. Let’s talk about angles first.
- Flexion is a reduction of the angle of a joint. For example, to close your elbow, creating a 90-degree angle (perhaps down to 20 degrees). Think of the upper arm as the “base” of the angle and the forearm as the Y-axis.
- Extension is an increase of the angle of a joint. For example, opening your elbow from a flex, you can create a 180-degree angle, or flat “line.”
Here is the tricky part. The terms flexion and extension apply on a sagittal plane in joints like the neck or spine. Think about it! Bending forward at the waist, you decrease the angle between the spine and legs. However, bending backward at the waist, you technically decrease an angle there, too! You could make an argument either way. For the sake of “simplicity,” we refer to movement anteriorally as flexion and posterially as extension. AAAAAAUGH! But I never said biology was easy!
And that’s all for today! I admit, I feel like I need to find my old protractor from the seventh grade. -CNx