Umm, excuse me, do you have any tape? Because I’m ripped…get it? Ripped? Oh well, we try. And yes, today we’re going to be talking about muscles. They’re those things that you use all the time. Seriously, they never stop. Whether it is your sphincter or chest muscles causing you to breathe, your cardiac muscles pumping blood through your body, or your eyelids constantly blinking, every second of every day there is a muscle somewhere in your body contracting. Here’s a fun fact for you – we can’t even define precisely how many muscles we have. Based on how you count them, you can have anywhere from several hundred to more than 50 billion. That’s a lot of muscles. Now, something critical to understand is that those muscles you typically think about (the big skeletal ones) only constitute a very small amount of the total number of muscles in your body. Most of your muscles are involved in little things that you never see like the muscles in your intestines helping you digest your food, for example, or the muscles inside your ears that help dampen and amplify sound. They are all important. These are 25 Interesting Truths About Your Musculoskeletal System That Are Truly Powerful!
Featured Image: fsecart via Flickr
Some studies have shown that consuming watermelon juice prior to working out reduces soreness.
Source: nih.gov, Image: wikipedia That falling sensation you get right when you are about to fall asleep is called a hypnic jerk. It happens because your brain misinterprets your relaxing muscles as a fall and attempts to regain its balance.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia In spite of months of inactivity while hibernating, bears don't experience muscular degeneration like humans would. Scientists are in the process of studying how this can help us.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia The Tensor Tympani muscles in your ear reduces the sound of chewing coming from your mouth.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia When film designers want to create aliens that are very humanoid, they make sure to include a sternocleidomastoid muscle (in the neck). It is a very mammalian feature and even C-3PO had it in the form of bolts on his neck.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Stone Man Syndrome is a rare disease that causes body tissues to be ossified, or turned to bone, when it is damaged. Sometimes this can cause injured joints to be rendered completely unusable.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia If all of your muscles pulled in the same direction, you could move 25 tons.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia The stapedius in your ear is the smallest muscle in your body. It actually serves to dampen vibrations and protect your inner ear, primarily from the sound of your own voice.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia The Palmaris longus is a visible tendon in your anterior wrist that is missing in about 14% of people. It can be used to replace other tendons should they get injured.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Researchers at the University of Texas have found a way to create artificial muscles out of fishing line and sewing thread. These muscles are more than 100 times more powerful than normal muscles.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Based on weight and force, the strongest muscles in your body are the masseters. These powerful muscles are responsible for helping you chew.
Source: softschools.com, Image: en.wikipedia.org Looking to buff up some of your muscles? Check out 25 Faster Muscle Building Exercises.
Sharks don't like eating humans because we have a high proportion of bones to muscles/fat.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia There are actually three different types of muscles in your body. Skeletal muscles are connected to and work with the skeleton to help you consciously move. Cardiac muscles make up your heart. Finally, smooth muscles move without conscious thought and aid in several things such as digestion and vision.
Source: softschools.com, Image: Wellcome Images via Flickr Your fingers don't actually have any muscles. They do, however, have tendons and ligaments that are connected to muscles in your palm.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Depending on how you count muscles, you could have anywhere between 650 muscles to 50 billion muscles in your body (yes, you read that correctly).
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia When people seem to go flying/falling because of electric shock, it is because their muscles contract suddenly.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia There is a common myth that it takes 43 muscles to frown and only 17 to smile. This is wrong. Every smile/frown is unique and incorporates a different amount of muscles depending on the person. Nobody can say with absolute accuracy exactly how many muscles a person uses when smiling.
Source:science.howstuffworks.com, Image: pixabay In a healthy human, muscles account for roughly 40% of your weight.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Imagining yourself doing something has been proven to actually improve your performance. Although your muscles aren't being activated, your brain is still learning which muscles to activate when the time comes for action.
Source: reddit, Image: wikipedia Muscles can't actually push anything; they can only pull. When you push something with your arms, it's a result of your muscles pulling on your elbow.
Source: blog.degreed.com, Image: pixabay.com You are born with all the muscles fibers you will ever have. That's right, you have the same number of fibers as Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, it's just that he has trained them and made them thicker.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia If we were capable of hearing frequencies lower than 20 Hz, we could hear the movement of our muscles.
Source: reddit, Image: Travis Isaacs via Flickr Relative to its size, your tongue is the strongest muscle in your body.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia The muscle with the most endurance is your heart. It never stops.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Wonder why you shiver when it's cold? Muscle contractions account for up to 85% of your body heat.
Source: marshaclarkermt.com, Image: publicdomainpictures.net 
