The number of bones in our bodies when we are adults is about 208. Your skull has 22 by itself!
The number of MUSCLES!? well… SO many more than that.
There are three main types of muscle:
1. Skeletal muscle
2. Smooth muscle
3. Cardiac muscle
Skeletal muscle are the normal muscles we think of – that attach to the skeleton. We normally have control over how and when we move these muscles and for every bone and joint in the body, there are at LEAST 2 muscles – one to move the bone one direction and one to pull it in the other. The thing about muscles is that they can only move things by contracting. They can not actively stretch themselves so they generally exist in pairs – to oppose the other one. So lets say there are 2 muscles per bone (crude average… there are probably many mroe…but lets go with that) then we have 416 skeletal muscles.
Smooth muscles are the ones we don’t think about – the ones that surrouns every artery, the ones that are in our diaphragm and in our intestines. These function involuntarily, which means we can not control when and how they move. I dont know how many arteries there are in the body but LOTS – hundreds. And each of those has smooth muscle.
Then, of course there is the heart. Arguably THE most important muscle in the body. That is the only cardiac muscle we have 🙂
Hi narellesimons,
The number of bones in our bodies when we are adults is about 208. Your skull has 22 by itself!
The number of MUSCLES!? well… SO many more than that.
There are three main types of muscle:
1. Skeletal muscle
2. Smooth muscle
3. Cardiac muscle
Skeletal muscle are the normal muscles we think of – that attach to the skeleton. We normally have control over how and when we move these muscles and for every bone and joint in the body, there are at LEAST 2 muscles – one to move the bone one direction and one to pull it in the other. The thing about muscles is that they can only move things by contracting. They can not actively stretch themselves so they generally exist in pairs – to oppose the other one. So lets say there are 2 muscles per bone (crude average… there are probably many mroe…but lets go with that) then we have 416 skeletal muscles.
Smooth muscles are the ones we don’t think about – the ones that surrouns every artery, the ones that are in our diaphragm and in our intestines. These function involuntarily, which means we can not control when and how they move. I dont know how many arteries there are in the body but LOTS – hundreds. And each of those has smooth muscle.
Then, of course there is the heart. Arguably THE most important muscle in the body. That is the only cardiac muscle we have 🙂
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