Sex: The Ultimate Full Body Workout
How many of your 657 muscles do you fire up when getting down?
To underline the role your muscles play throughout the day— as well as during classic muscle working activities such as running, cycling and resistance training — we’ve been totting up how many are involved in everyday activities.
Crying added up to 17, texting took us to 38, breakdancing clocked up 133… and this led us to consider how many play a starring role between the sheets.
Further reading: How Many Muscles Does It Take To…
We started to investigate the carnal muscles involved in the act of love making for men and women, and came across some rather distracting discoveries.
For example, we learned women burn 69 calories during the average sex session. We read that man’s main love muscle — the penis — doesn’t contain any actual muscle. We even found advice that suggested squats are the best exercise to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles — for men as well as women. [For further clarification see below.]
Meanwhile, we enlisted the help of our muscle expert Mike Aunger to highlight all the major muscles involved in dancing the horizontal tango, for example supporting your bodyweight, keeping your balance or thrusting…
But then we realised, frankly, it’s not for us to plunge into the intricacies of how and in what configuration you have sex.
Further reading: Getting To Know Your Muscles
The point is every single one of your body’s 657 muscles are getting a workout around the clock.
Your skeletal muscles are essential for movement, no matter how vigorous; all your autonomous (involuntary) smooth muscles play a ceaseless role in digestion, respiration, circulation and bodily function; and of course your cardiac muscles are integral for pumping your blood into all the right places.
We realised it doesn’t depend on the size of your boat or motion of your ocean. Sex is a full-body workout that exercises every one of your 657 muscles no matter how you like to get down.
So next time you miss a workout, bear in mind how many muscles you’re putting to good use throughout the day (and night), and remember to provide them with the essential raw materials they need to recover accordingly.
Our Sex Muscle Discoveries
Women burn 69 calories during sex
That’s for the average session, according to a 2013 study from the University of Montreal. The same study, which used a sex equivalent to a wrist-worn activity tracker, found men burn an even 100 calories per go and the typical romp lasts 25 minutes from start of foreplay to breathless finale.
The penis is not a muscle
The organ famously known as a “love muscle” doesn’t contain any actual muscle. However, there are muscles involved in the filling phase of an erection. First, smooth muscle — which is autonomous and not under our voluntary control — relaxes. Then, nitric oxide is released into the blood, making the blood vessels dilate. The result: a dramatic increase of penile blood flow and you’re good to go.
Squats strengthen your pelvic floor
This one applies to all genders. Pelvic floor exercises — also known as kegels — are often prescribed to help strengthen the muscles that support the pelvic organs and span the bottom of the pelvis. Making these strong is meant to give us greater control over our bladder and bowel, aid pre- or post-childbirth, and help tighten (women) or strengthen (men) the downstairs machinery. But often kegels can make these muscles tight and, as a result, weak. An alternative solution is to do a few daily squats (with bodyweight or a light load) that will help lengthen the pelvic floor muscles and return them to their natural strength.
Remember, Every Muscle Matters. Join our community and tag your posts with #fuel657
