ELEMENTS OF STYLE IN NEUROMUSCULAR ARCHITECTURE

Mammalian skeletal muscles are all composed of similar structural elem ents. However, they gain a large degree of functional specialization b y configuring those elements in different ways. The traditional anatom ical descriptors of muscle-length, cross-sectional area and angle of p innation-give little insight into several of the specializations of ar chitecture that can have a major impact on muscular function, These fe atures include the arrangement and lengths of aponeuroses and tendons, the presence of compartmentalization, fiber-type composition, moment- arm relationships at different joint angles and interindividual variat ion, Quantitative data for these features are often lacking in morphom etric studies but they are often essential for the generation of mathe matical models of musculoskeletal mechanics.