Skeletal System: Organs & Function

If you’ve ever been curious about what holds your body upright or allows you to walk down the hall, this lesson is for you. Here, we’ll be exploring the four main organs of the skeletal system and examining their job in providing structure and movement for the body.
What Is the Skeletal System?
Take a minute to check in with your body. Where are you sitting? Can you feel the chair under your hip bones? Now consider why you don’t just flop over. What is preventing you from turning into a pool of jelly on the floor? The answer is your skeletal system, or all the bones and connective tissue in your body that helps to hold you up.

However, you might be surprised to learn that the skeletal system does more than just provide structure. The skeletal system is imperative for movement as well. It also helps create the red blood cells that carry oxygen around your body, allowing you to make energy and stay alive. Today, we’re going to look at the four main organs of the skeletal system: bones, cartilage, ligaments, and tendons.

Bones
Take a minute and press on one of the bones in your body. Bones seem pretty solid, and even with a rough fall, they still stay intact most of the time. However, bones aren’t just solid pieces of tissue. Bones are living, breathing organs that grow and change, just like the rest of your body.

Bones are made of cells, primarily osteocytes. Most bones have a hollow center filled with bone marrow. The osteocytes are arranged into groups called osteons that surround the bone marrow in circles. The bone cells secrete a calcium matrix, made of calcium, proteins, and phosphorus that create the solid bone we are familiar with.

Structure and Support
The main job of the bones is to provide structure and support for your body. Bone cells called osteoblasts produce new bone and keep it hard. This hard structure is used to keep us standing and support our organs.

Take your rib cage for example. Inside your rib cage are delicate lungs. Lungs have no muscle and are made of a soft, spongy tissue. Your rib cage prevents any impact to your chest from puncturing the lungs. Your skull serves a similar purpose for your brain. The brain is a soft, spongy tissue in need of a solid case to protect it, much like your phone case protects your phone from damage.

Movement
Now, let’s look at the skeletal muscles. Our skeletal muscles are anchored to our bones for movement. When the muscles contract, or shorten, they cause our bones to move with them, since they are anchored together. The effect is movement of our appendages.

Picture doing curls at the gym. Your bicep muscle is attached to the bone in your forearm and upper arm. When it contracts, it pulls the two bones together, causing your forearm to raise. Without bones, the muscles would just shorten, but we wouldn’t go anywhere.

Blood Cell Production
Inside the hard, calcified bone is a spongy tissue called bone marrow. Bone marrow is the site of production for all blood cells. Bone marrow contains special cells called stem cells. These cells are capable of becoming any type of blood cell.

The stem cells divide and are instructed by chemicals in the environment and interactions with other cells about which blood cell type to become. This process is incredibly important because blood cells don’t divide on their own. The only way they are replaced is through stem cell division in the bone marrow, and for some white blood cells, the spleen or thymus.

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