Leave Your Supermodel Friends At Home

Name of Book: The Art of Thinking Clearly
Name of Chapter: Leave Your Supermodel Friends At Home

Summary
Author Rolf Dobelli introduces the contrast effect as a common misconception among people. We seem to believe that ordering leather seats for our new car at $3000 seems a pittance compared to the $60000 price tag on the car. The $3000 for the leather seats, however, is not a pottance because you are still spending $3000 on leather seats. The contrast effect is also implemented in other areas relating to our lives, such as buying items on discount.

Question
If I had the opprotunity to ask the author any question, I would ask the following:
- What is the best way to use your so called "effects" to our advantages?
- Why do people use the contrast effect?

Unit 7 Reflection

Unit 7 was a detailed overview of the muscles, types of muscle fibers, joint movements, and performance enhancements. The themes of this unit were learning the effects of performance enhancements on our bodies and how the different muscles in our body will affect the movement and well-being of our bodies. 

Throughout the unit, we took on projects to enhance our knowledge on the topic. Such projects include the chicken dissection and the muscle contraction video. The chicken dissection tested our knowledge on the muscles of the chicken- their location and anatomical parts. The muscle contraction video, on the other hand, tested our knowledge on the muscle contraction process, our drawing skills, and our walking skills. 

What I wanted to learn more about were the different scandals professional athletes were involved in and which performance enhancements they used. I am really interested in the stories behind these drug scandals and also interested how the performance enhancements they used benefited and/or destroyed their bodies.

As a student, I think I am on the way to complete my New Year Goals. My goals were to stop procrastinating and sleep more often. So far, I sleep about six to eight hours, which was an improvement from only sleeping four to five hours. As to procrastinating, I started my homework earlier on the weekends instead of cramming all the homework on Sunday night.

Performance Enhancements Advertisement

What concerns most to me about performance enhancements is the differentiation between those banned in sports and others allowed. Every year, the sports administration bans more performance enhancements and I am concerned for the well-being of my favorite athletes. Maria Sharapova, example, recently had a drug scandal and no longer endorses Nike and other companies. Her circumstance was that she was unaware that a drug she used medically, melondium, was banned from the USTA in January 2016, and she continued using the drug. I do not want other athletes to be stripped from their reputation for their ignorance concerning performance enhancements.

Of course, there are performance enhancements that are natural and unnatural. EPO and strength training are natural performance enhancements, and caffeine is an unnatural performance enhancement.

Chicken Dissection

During the chicken dissection lab, Nicole and Angela dissected the chicken by removing the chicken skin and internal organs. They slit the chicken medially and worked on dissecting different parts of the chicken. Meanwhile, Simrun and I identified the different muscles in the chicken, labeled them accordingly, and snapped pictures of the labels matching the muscles. 

There are many muscles involved in flexing and extending the leg. The semimembranosus and the semitendinosus, for example, are all involved in extending the thigh; the satorius and iliotibialis extend and flex the leg.

The origin is the immovable end of the muscle and insertion is the movable end of of the muscle. When a muscle contracts, the insertion is moved toward the origin. The iliotibialis, for example, is identified as the insertion because it extends the thigh and flexes the leg. 

Chicken muscles and humans are remarkably similar but also have apparent differences. 

• The gastrocnemius are both attached to the two organisms´ Achilles tendons; however, the Achilles tendon runs around the hock in the birds and the heel in humans. 
• Both the chicken and humans have latissimus dorsi that are directly distal to the trapeziuses of the two organisms´ back and extend or pull the wing for the chicken and arm for humans.
• The satorius runs down the front edge of the thigh from the ilium to the knee in birds but across the front of the thigh in humans.

Quadriceps Femoris: Muscle lying on the inside of the thigh just medial to the sartorius in the bird; Flexes the thigh and extends the lower leg

Gastrocnemius: Primary muscle of the dorsal and medial sides of the drumstick; Extends the foot and flexes the lower leg
Tibalis Anterior: Muscle larger than and directly under the peroneus longus in the birds; Causes pain in the disorder known as ¨shin splints¨ and flexes the foot
Peroneus Longus: Primary superficial muscle on the lateral side of the drumsticks in birds; Extends the foot

Brachioradialis: Largest muscle on the superior side of the lower wing closest to the alula; Pulls the hand back
Flexor Carpi Ulnaris: Largest muscle on the posterior side of the lower wing away from the alula; Flexes the hand

Semimembranosus: Muscle inferior and medial to the biceps femoris and extends the thigh
Biceps Femoris: Muscle lying just medial and inferior section of the iliotibials in the bird; primary upper leg muscle powering running and flexing the leg
Semitendinosus: Muscle anterior and medial to the semimebranosus on the inside of the thigh and extends the thigh

Sartorius: Muscle running down the front edge of the thigh from the ilium to knee in birds and flexes the thigh to allow the crossing of legs

Iliotibialis: Muscle that thrusts the knee back into hyperextension thereby locking the knee

Trapezius: Muscles running perpendicular from the backbone to the shoulder of the bird and pull the shoulder back
Latissimus Dorsi: Muscles directly distal to the trapeziuses on the bird´s and the human´s back that extend or pull the wing or arm

Pectoralis Major: Large superficial breast muscles of the bird that pull the wing ventrally, powering flight
Pectoralis Minor: Thin, triangular muscle situated under the pectoralis major that lifts the wing dorsally

What Happens When You Stretch

Relate and Review

When you stretch, the muscle fiber is pulled out to its full length by the sarcomere, and then the connective tissue takes up the remaining slack. Stretching helps to realign any disorganized fibers, rehabilitating scarred tissue back to health.

Earlier this school year, I suffered a major pain injury in my quadriceps during the tennis season due to not stretching before the match. Stretching rehabilitates scarred tissue, and I usually never stretch.
Therefore, my quadriceps were never able to recover from the previous day's match; thus, my major pain in the quadriceps developed. Thankfully, I recovered from the pain with the help of BenGay and bags of ice.


Quotes

• "the stretch flex nerves increase their firing rates (signaling) as their length steadily increases"
• Author Brad Appleton's use of "firing rates" as a synonym for signaling to describe a static component of the stretch flex adds another dimension to the actions of the stretch flex. "Firing rates" really provides the reader information on the rapidity of the stretch flex sending the signal, which cannot be described in any better words.
• "Picture little pockets of fibers distributed throughout the muscle body stretching, and other fibers simply going along for a ride"
• The analogy of other fibers going for a ride really demonstrates the process within our body. While some fibers are distributed throughout the muscle body when stretching, others are just "going along for a ride."
• "proprioception: the perception of one's own body position and movement"
• Proprioception is the source of proprioceptors, which detect any changes in physical displacement. This process is very important, due to the fact that these nerve endings relay all the information of the musculoskeletal system to the central nervous system.