You do not have to be an athlete or weight lifter to appreciate your body muscles.
If you are able to move your eyes, your tongue while speaking or walk from one place to another, it is the muscles that enable you to do this.
You should now start appreciating the fact that without muscles, you are incapable of even being alive because your heart uses its muscles to pump blood to your body.
Our bodies contain more than six hundred muscles.
Some of these muscles can be controlled while some others like the heart muscles work independently.
Our body muscles contain thousands of fibers.
They are grouped according to the three different types which are the smooth, skeletal and cardiac muscles.
Smooth muscles are the ones found inside the hollow structures for example the intestines, the urinary bladder, stomach and blood vessels.
They are involuntary muscles, meaning that we cannot control them but they are co-coordinated from the brain.
They contract, like when someone is unwell and has to vomit, so they push the food out of the stomach.
In the bladder, they enable you to pass urine or hold it in.
During labor, the smooth muscles found in the uterus enable the baby to be pushed out into the world.
The skeletal body muscles are the ones, as the name suggests, attached to the body's bones.
These include the 'Popeye' muscles and also the muscles you use to kick a ball or jump over a pool of water.
They do not all look alike and neither do they have the same functions.
Their contractions are in different rates according to their strengths.
They are referred to as striated owing to the stripped look of these muscle fibers.
These skeletal body muscles are also voluntary muscles since you are able to control their movement and what actions they perform.
If you want to pick up a coin, you have to control the muscles in order for you to stand still if you were walking, probably put your legs together, bend down, stretch your hand and then bend your fingers into a position that will help you pick up the coin, then pull up your back, straighten your legs and possibly put the coin in your pocket.
These muscles work together with the bones as they are attached together using tendons.
The last type of muscles is the cardiac muscles or the myocardium.
These muscles are the major components of the heart's wall.
They are also striated to mean that they have striations along the fibers.
They are also involuntary muscles and we do not have to direct them with our brains in order for them to work.
These body muscles help to pump blood to the rest of the body.