WHAT IS MUSCLE PUZZLES?

Muscle Puzzles is a company that develops anatomy teaching tools. The musculoskeletal system comes with a life-sized skeleton, a set of 89 life-sized muscles organized by group (1-6) in a zippered bag, and a 175 page “User Book”. Students can easily learn and retain the muscular system from our product:

The muscles are color coordinated to show depth, layering, and fascial line affiliation.
The muscles are organized by group 1-6 (1-lower leg, 2-hip and thigh, 3-spine and thorax, 4-head and neck, 5-shoulder, 6-arm).

The User Book has all major muscles with attachment sites and all instructions needed for attaching muscles.

WHY WAS MUSCLE PUZZLES DEVELOPED?

A. BECAUSE OF A NEED

I created Muscle Puzzles because I had such a difficult time learning and remembering the musculoskeletal system. As a Kinesiology undergrad, Pilates Teacher, and Fascial Stretch Therapist, I had a real need to understand the musculoskeletal system but much to my dismay, I could not quite memorize muscle name, attachment, or action. In an attempt to learn it once again, I registered for a Kinesiology class at Austin Community College. Looking forward to a new “anatomy” experience (20 years post undergrad), I was sorely disappointed when I realized teaching tools had not advanced as I would have expected. It was that moment I promised myself I would build the muscular system myself so EVERYONE could learn this challenging subject, with ease. 13 years later and many versions, attempts and failures, we have Muscle Puzzles. Now, all students and all teachers can use Muscle Puzzles to learn and or teach the musculoskeletal system. And have fun doing it!

One of the most exciting and useful things about Muscle Puzzles are the colors. The muscles are designed in an array of colors following the rainbow schematic, to show deep vs superficial muscles, and layers between. Pink represents the deepest muscles, to red, orange, yellow, light green, dark green, light purple and dark purple is the most superficial. As people learn the muscles, the colors help them remember how they layer on the skeleton. And nothing can compare to holding a muscle in your hand – seeing and feeling the shapes of the muscles.

Another extremely useful aspect of Muscle Puzzles is being able to see how muscles wrap around the skeleton, compared to Books which only provide a 2 dimensional image. There are anatomy teaching tools, made of plastic, that show some muscle wrapping but those models only come apart partly to show muscle layers. Muscle Puzzles allows the student to see all the major muscles; how they attach to the skeleton, wrap around the bones, and how they layer, individually.

– Suzie A.

Happy Customer’s

“Muscle Puzzle is an incredible tool for helping students engage with the musculoskeletal system. The interactive nature and color-coded design allow them to visualize muscle groups and their relationships in a hands-on way. The puzzles also show the origin and insertion of each muscle, helping students understand their functions. Different muscle colors make it easier for students to differentiate between superficial and deeper muscles, which can be challenging when viewing anatomical diagrams or models. From a teaching perspective, it simplifies the explanation, making our sessions more efficient. It also fosters active learning and collaboration among student groups, improving their retention and understanding.”

Best,
Xinyu

About the Author

Hello, my name is Suzi Alderete

Hello. My name is Suzi Alderete. I have a master’s degree in Kinesiology from The University of Texas, Austin and I teach human anatomy. Im also a Fascial Stretch Therapist and Pilates Teacher. I’ve been working with bodies for over 30 years and studying anatomy and movement throughout those years. My struggle with learning the muscular system led me to create Muscle Puzzles’ first product, the muscular and skeletal systems (musculoskeletal). I’ve spent the last 13 years perfecting it, but I am elated to finally be able to share this unique learning (and teaching) tool to everyone studying anatomy.
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As a movement teacher, I struggled to communicate movement to my clients. Because of the vast movement languages available (to the world), communicating safe and “proper” movement can be extremely challenging. My book, “reConnect Your Dots”, is my attempt at clearing this up and explaining movement with a simple, straight forward approach – moving and connecting dots. Although proving a theory takes years, our study on human subjects showed, with statistical significance, that using “the dots” positively changed arm movements, improving shoulder stability, in all of our subjects. And the most exciting part is that it can be used in ANY movement program.8

I love teaching and helping people so I developed my workshops that incorporate both learning, or reviewing the muscular and skeletal systems and taking it into movement using “reconnect Your Dots”. In the workshops, students are required to “dress out” the skeleton with muscles and learn the movements they make by connecting, or “reconnecting”, their dots. An interactive and fun learning experience!

Masters – University of Texas at Austin
BS from Northern Arizona University
Fascial Stretch Therapist / Pilates Certified

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