Biology Forums - Study Force

. Explain how a slight (but smooth) contraction differs from a vigorous contraction of the same muscle: use the concepts of multiple motor unit summation

Umm, I really don't know what half of those words mean. But I do know that the smooth muscle is slow, and is involuntary. The smooth muscle pushes food through your digestive system, helps push out a baby, holds in urine(when you've really got to go lol), and makes the food go back up when you are puking. Hope this helped.

This thing refers to a twitch more than anything. The muscle twitch is the response of a muscle to a single action potential on its motor neuron. When force is increased, you get multiple motor unit summation, which is how a smooth increase in muscle force is produced. In other words, a summation of forces from multiple motor units produces a vigorous contraction of the same muscle.