Biology · Locomotion and Movement · NEET
No. Muscular movement is one of the three types of movement in humans (amoeboid, ciliary, muscular). Locomotion means moving the whole body from one place to another, like walking or running. Muscular movement can cause locomotion, but it can also just move a body part in place, such as chewing food or blinking, which is movement but not locomotion.
A muscle is made of special cells that can contract, meaning get shorter and thicker. Most skeletal muscles are attached to bones by tendons. When the muscle contracts, it pulls the bone toward it, and the bone moves at a joint. When the muscle relaxes, it lets go. So the pulling force of contraction, transferred through bones and joints, is what you see as movement.
A muscle can only pull, it cannot push. So one muscle can move a bone in only one direction. To move the bone back, a second muscle on the opposite side must pull it the other way. This opposite-acting pair is called an antagonistic pair, for example the biceps bends the elbow and the triceps straightens it. NEET often tests this 'muscles only pull' idea.
It can be both. Skeletal muscles attached to bones are voluntary, meaning you control them by will, like moving your leg. But smooth muscles (in the gut, blood vessels) and cardiac muscle (heart) also contract and cause movement, and these are involuntary, meaning they work without your conscious control. All three are still muscular movement because muscles are contracting.
Muscle tissue shows muscular movement. NCERT lists three types: skeletal (striated) muscle for body movements and posture, smooth (visceral) muscle in internal organs, and cardiac muscle in the heart wall. All of them contain contractile proteins (actin and myosin) that let the cells shorten, which is the basis of muscular movement.
Try the real previous-year questions from this chapter — each with the answer and a full solution.
It is movement produced when muscles contract (shorten) and relax. The contracting muscle pulls a body part, such as a bone, and this causes the part to move.
Amoeboid movement (by pseudopodia, seen in some white blood cells), ciliary movement (by cilia, seen in the respiratory tract), and muscular movement (by muscle contraction). Muscular movement is the most common and is used for limbs, jaw, tongue, and locomotion.
The chapter Locomotion and Movement is a scoring, high-yield topic. Understanding that muscular movement is one of three movement types, and that muscles only pull, builds the base for the sliding filament theory and muscle contraction questions that NEET asks almost every year.
Muscles only pull. They generate force by shortening, which pulls the attached bone. To move the bone back, an opposite (antagonistic) muscle must pull it in the other direction.
Skeletal (striated) muscle, which is attached to bones, is mainly responsible for voluntary body movements and locomotion. Smooth and cardiac muscles cause movement inside organs and the heart.
