why does a pennate muscle arrangement produce more force tha

why does a \"pennate\" muscle arrangement produce more force than having the muscles parallel to each other?

Solution

advantage of pennate muscles is this more muscle fibers are packed in parallel, thus allowing the muscle to produce more and more force, although the fiber angle to the direction of action means that the maximum force in particular that direction is less than the maximum force in the fiber direction.The muscle cross sectional area (known as anatomical cross section area, or ACSA) does not accurately represent the number of muscle fibers in the muscle. A better estimate is provided by the total area of the cross - sections perpendicular to the muscle fibers. This measure is called as the physiological cross sectional area (PCSA), and is commonly calculated by the following formula

PCSA- MUSCLE VOLUME / FIBRE LENGTH..

It was originally thought that the distance between aponeuroses did not change during the contraction of a pennate muscle, thus requiring the fibers to rotate as they shorten. This dynamic gearing automatically shifts in order to produce either maximal velocity under low loads or maximal force under high loads.