 here everybody Dr. O here. In this short video we're going to talk about the layers of connected tissue that hold our muscles together so we're going to talk about the epimysium, the perimysium and then the endomyceum. Alright so skeletal muscles are going to be individual muscle cells called skeletal muscle fibers and then they're going to be organized in what are called fascicles then there's going to be nerve fibers, connective tissue, all sorts of stuff here. So let's just focus on the three layers of connective tissue here and each layer is called a mycea which is why you see epimysium, perimysium like that. The reason this is important is it provides structure to individual muscles but it also compartmentalizes muscle fibers and I'll tell you in a moment why that matters. So first we have the epimysium, they can see they're at the top so an individual skeletal muscle has a layer of dense irregular connective tissue around it called the epimysium that allows the muscles to contract and move but then also keep their integrity so it's very important. The other important reason we have this epimysium is that it separates the muscle from all the other tissues and guts and juices that we have in our body in that area so it allows the muscles to move independently so that's very important. Alright so that is your epimysium, the dense irregular connected tissue that encases an individual skeletal muscle so epimines like above or around. Then as you can see here at the top a skeletal muscle is going to be organized into bunches of fibers called muscle facicles and each of these muscle facicles is going to have a layer of perimysium around it. The reason this is important, you especially see these on limb muscles, we'll talk about fascicular arrangement and how it impacts how muscles work but the reason this is really important is each of these muscle facicles, this bunch of individual muscle fibers is going to be controlled by a motor unit and that's going to allow the nervous system to trigger a specific movement inside of a muscle rather than all the muscle fibers need to be attracted at the same time. Different motor units can tell different parts of the muscle to function depending on what needs to be done. That's why we only have a handful of muscles but they can do all sorts of complex movements. Alright and then so that's going to be so the epimysium is around the entire muscle, the perimysium surrounds these muscle facicles, these bundles of muscle fibers and then we have at the bottom an individual muscle fiber so each individual muscle fiber is going to be encased in a thin layer of connected tissue, it's collagen plus some particular fibers, this is going to be called the endomyceum. So the endomyceum is the protective coating around an individual muscle cell or individual muscle fiber so inside this endomyceum is where you're going to have the extracellular fluid, the fluid that's around these individual muscle cells and that's going to be where the nutrients and the different things that muscle fibers need are going to be inside of this casing. Alright so all three of those are very important, the epimysium around a muscle, the perimysium around a muscle facicle and the endomyceum around an individual muscle fiber but all of them fuse at the end of muscle so all this connected tissue fuses to form the tendons. Remember that a tendon is what attaches a muscle to a bone so they have their individual functions but they all work as a unit at the end to create this really powerful tendon so that when muscles do contract they actually can move your bones and cause movement. Alright those are the three layers of connected tissue involved in skeletal muscles. I hope this helps, have a wonderful day. Be blessed.