A muscle attached to the bones of the skeleton and provides the force that moves the bones.

• A. Cardiac muscle
• B. Skeletal muscle
• C. Smooth muscle
• D. Myocyte

Answer: (B)

Skeletal muscle does the job of moving the bones. It attaches to bones (usually via tendons) and, when it contracts, it pulls on the bone to produce movement at the joints. This type of muscle is under voluntary control and has a striated, multinucleated structure organized into sarcomeres that generate force through the sliding filament mechanism.

In contrast, cardiac muscle is found only in the heart and pumps blood; smooth muscle lines hollow organs and blood vessels and moves substances along without voluntary control. A myocyte is simply a muscle cell, and skeletal muscle is made up of many of these cells, but the tissue that moves the skeleton is specifically skeletal muscle.