Anatomy Of Synovial Joint | Bali Yoga School

Namaste, my name is Kirti and on behalf of Himalayan Yoga Association & Bali Yoga School, I welcome you all to this online teacher training course. I am a teacher here at Himalayan Yoga Association and I will be taking you through the concepts and details of the human body and yoga all together. I told you about the three different types of joints, the fixed joints, the joints are available in the skull, different bones fused together about 20 different bones in the head itself fuse together to form the protective layer that covers the entire head or covers the entire brain as such. The second type of joint is a cartilaginous joint present in case of the rib cage.

Cartilaginous joint is basically a type of joint which is connected which connects different bones coming together with the help of cartilage allowing very partial but involuntary movement or flexibility. The third type of joint available in the human body is called as the synovial joint or the freely movable joint. The synovial joints are really the joints which are coming to your mind anytime you try to interact with the outside world, even the simplest of movements, whether you’re dancing,

whether you’re doing asanas, whatever you’re doing, these joints make everything easy. These joints, even though they come with their own limitations, but these are the joints which make life interesting for us. Let’s go ahead and understand what makes these synovial joints so effective and how are we able to do so much with them as compared to the fixed joint or the cartilaginous joint. Here if you follow this diagram right here you’ll see that there are two bones this take the example of let’s let’s think of this as a normal knee joint minus the patella bone so this

could be one of your femur bone and this could be the tibia bone as it is coming together to form the knee joint as it is. There is a very thin layer of periosteum which is covering the bones in all direction and not just the joints in the area. Actually this periosteum is covering each and every part of the bone except for the part where the joint cavity exists. All exists, all the bones in the human body they are covered with a periosteum which is a connective tissue used for further intelligence and further lubrication and protection of the compact structure

of the joint. If you see that this periosteum ends where articular cartilage starts. Obviously periosteum is not enough as a joint cavity as a lubricant that is why it stops at the beginning or of either ends of the bone at the beginning where the articular cartilage begins. It’s a very intelligent structure as it is. This red thing on the outside is the ligament. The ligament as I told you is the connected tissue with joints one bone to the other. The purpose of the ligament is to stabilize the joint cavity or the synovial capsule.

The purpose of the entire ligament is to provide more strength, one more layer of protection and of course strength and stability to the joint itself. Without the ligament definitely this whole joint would be much less stable and more prone to accidents beyond recovery as well. We do not pay much heed to the ligaments in the human body but believe me these without these ligaments our life would be a walking which in which you may not even be able to walk.

So if you see that this red thing is the ligament which is on the outside connecting bone 1 with bone 2 and of course offering protection to the inside components of the synovial joints. The black outlining right here is the fibrous layer of the joint cavity, again the purpose of which is to protect and provide support stability to the synovial membrane which is represented here with a red dotted line. So three different layers, three different layers in this case and this is not, this is just in case of, let us because we are discussing the knee joint.

In case if we are discussing other joints, it may or may not have ligaments, it could also have tendons, it could also have just muscles covering the entire joint capsule, just because depending on the part of the body that we are functioning, that we are working with at that time and how the body is structured and designed as it is, in this case we have the ligaments. So, the synovial membrane which is on the inside of the fibrous layer is the main component

of the entire synovial joint. It is because of the synovial membrane that it is able to secrete and absorb the synovial fluid inside the joint cavity. Think of it as a bubble in which there is always going to be a release or absorption of synovial fluid with the synovial membrane. Now this synovial membrane, it is a very, I would not say it is a very strong structure

as compared to a ligament or the width of the synovial membrane, then it would be about the size of a human hair, which means that it does not really offer much protection. But that is not the purpose of the synovial membrane. The purpose of the synovial membrane is to release and absorb the synovial fluid which is present in between these two bones inside the joint cavity. Now what you need to understand is if you see right here as well then bone 1 is not

touching bone 2 because there needs to be space for the synovial fluid inside. Also the articular cartilage right here, in this case, in case of the knees, it’s called as meniscus. The articular cartilage is present just in case if the synovial membrane is not absorbing or releasing the synovial fluid effectively, then the articular cartilage thus restricts grinding of the bones by providing ample cushioning or comfort whenever these bones they come in contact with each other which in a healthy person’s joints should not happen and that is why you

must have come across situations like generally people who are beyond their 40s old people they suffer from problems such as arthritis osteoarthritis and such osteoarthritis is basically a condition in the major joints in the human body where these bones they start grinding against each other just because the synovial fluid is not functioning, the synovial membrane is not doing its job right and that is why these two bones they often meet each other and the first damage that they incur is the damage of the articular cartilage.

After the articular cartilage has worn off, do these bones, they start grinding against each other, which starts reshaping the joint and further inflammation of the joints and of course it restricts movements and that’s how people tend to complain about knee pains or other joint pains a lot. All because of the synovial fluid which tells you that the purpose of the synovial fluid

inside this joint cavity is that of a lubricant. Yes, the synovial fluid is present as a lubricant. The texture of the synovial fluid would not be much different than the texture of your mucous, gooey, thick gel like structure, not very runny and not very loose either. But the only purpose and the most important thing that the synovial fluid does is it keeps the articular cartilage lubricated enough and absorbs the shock.

So basically the entire purpose of the synovial fluid is to absorb any shocks just in case if you’re jumping or you’re doing any other physical activity with your joints. Lubrication of the two different bones which are meeting each other so that they do not grind against each other and do not cause any damage to each other. Of course you understand how gravity and weight, they have a very harsh effect on the different bones, on the different joints of the human body

if you do not have a healthy synovial membrane naturally you’re going to experience inflammation and pain in your joints. Apart from that this is everything you need to understand about the synovial joints. The synovial joint is obviously not as simple as just having a cartilage between two different bones and allowing restricted movements. It is a very complex structure.

Without the understanding of synovial joints, you would not be able to make great yoga teachers as well because this is something that you will work with mostly. Understand this, the synovial joints are the reason why we are able to move like we do whether we are doing any asanas, whether we are dancing, whether we are doing any sort of exercises and because of the synovial joint are we able to understand the limitations of various parts of the human body as well as what we need to do in order for us to exceed the limits.

This is everything you need to know about the anatomy of the synovial joints. I hope you enjoyed today’s lecture. I hope you found it informative enough. I will come again next time with the various types of synovial joints present in the human body. But until then, I’ll see you again.

But until then, I’ll see you again. Thank you and Namaste.