This parody (written by Greg Crowther) is sung to the tune of
"Jump"
(written and performed by
Van Halen).
Lyrics
I get up,
And then I come back down;
You've got film
To record each bound.
Well, you know
Power's what I need.
My muscle pulls on the tendon
At the right length and speed.
You know my sarcomeres
Are roughly 1.8 to 2.3 microns long.
That's the range where I'm strong.
The data couldn't be wrong!
Might as well jump. Jump!
A maximum jump.
Go ahead, jump. Jump!
A maximum jump.
Two muscles in a power contest --
Which would lose?
You say you won't know
Unless you know the velocity used.
When plotting power versus speed,
One third Vmax is where peak power is seen
For a muscle machine.
Oh, can't you see what I mean?
Might as well jump. Jump!
A maximum jump.
Might as well jump. Jump!
A maximum jump.
Might as well jump. Jump!
A maximum jump.
Get it and jump. Jump!
A maximum jump.
Comments
This song, sung from the perspective of a frog addressing
the scientists who experiment upon him, was written and performed
for students in Biology 334B in the fall of
2002. It is a summary of the paper Built
for jumping: the design of the frog muscular system by Gordon J.
Lutz and Lawrence C. Rome (Science 263: 370-2, 1994). Based on high-speed
videotapes and other data, Lutz & Rome concluded that the semimembranosus muscles
of jumping frogs operate near the peak of their length-tension curve and at the peak
of their power-velocity curve.