This week saw Mark Cavendish, the all time best ever sprinter in the Tour de France crash out of the race. This denies him the opportunity of setting the record for most ever stage wins in the race, upping his current total of 34 to 35 and topping the great Eddy Merckx.
What Cav damaged was his collar bone or clavicle.
This is a small slightly s shaped bone that acts as a brace between the top of the sternum and the shoulder blade, holding the arm out from the body and allowing it to function as a useful appendage. It may be visible depending on the percentage of body fat
The name clavicle derives from the Latin for a small key and may be suggestive the bones ability to rotate around its axis in the same way as a key turn in a lock.
The clavicle is the most often broken bone in the body. As people fall they reach out a hand out to safe themselves and the shock transmits up the arm with the resulting stress shattering the bone.
The clavicle is an unusual bone. It is the first to start to form in a foetus but it is also the last bone to completely ossify – where the cartilage that forms the developing structure is replaced with bone.
The end closest to the sternum has a plug of cartilage which begins to ossify around age 14. As this plug continues to ossify it eventually fuses with the main shaft of the bone, a process that starts around 16 but continues into the late twenties.
This makes the clavicle a very useful bone for forensics. Due to its location the bone is often protected from the elements by the rib cage and upper limb. Its state of ossification can age some one to under 14, between 15 and mid twenties or older.
Lets hope the tour continues uneventfully and does not fuel anymore anatomically based posts.
Author: Anatomy Fundamentals
Janet Philp has spent a lifetime exploring fitness and wellbeing. Starting in group exercise, travelling through rugby to representing the UK at martial arts before including Yoga, meditation, Budokon and personal instruction. Her passion is anatomical function and educating people to use their bodies to their full potential.
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