Getting To Know Your Muscles
How do we know it takes 35 muscles to pucker up for a kiss, 99 to run for the bus and all 657 to have sex? Our muscle expert Mike Aunger explains how he’s calculated the key numbers involved
Your muscles never get a day off. Just reading this requires 16 muscles in your eyes to focus on the text; muscles in your neck, back and core to retain your posture; muscles in your arms and hands to hold your coffee cup; and still more muscles to digest your food and keep your heart pumping.
Your muscles are intrinsic to everything you do; not just getting you to the finish line of your park run or making a racket in the gym.
Further reading: New Year Hacks For Healthy Muscles
To underline their importance — and why it’s vital you keep them in good nick — we’ve been working with expert physiotherapist Mike Aunger to establish exactly how many are involved in everyday activities, from walking your dog (94) to doing the waltz (137) and the hero muscles behind skills like executing the perfect golf drive (gastrocnemius).
Your muscles never get a day off.
“It’s not an exact science,” says Aunger of Technique Physiotherapy and Sports Medicine, who’s worked across a raft of sports, from Saracens RFU and Chelsea FC to Great Britain’s bobsleigh and ski cross. “The jury is still out on the total number of muscles in your body, while some may use more for some tasks than others.
“But while I was digging through textbooks and racking my brain for the key muscles involved, I was reminded of all the small overlooked muscles that are fundamental to the infinite number of precise tasks we need to execute everyday.”
Further reading: 5 Easy Steps To Healthy Muscles
Aunger relied on two of the “anatomy bibles” he used throughout his sports medicine studies at Nottingham University and London’s Queen Mary’s University. First, Gray’s Anatomy (the definitive reference book that’s been in continuous publication since 1858) and Nigel Palastanga and Roger Soames’s Anatomy and Human Movement.
Every minute of every day our muscles have to work in perfect harmony just to keep us going.
“Working out the muscles involved was fiddly and complex but enlightening at the same time,” he says. “If you don’t exercise often or haven’t grown up digesting anatomy textbooks like me, you might not fully appreciate the vital role your muscles — little or large — play in everyday activities.
“Every minute of every day our muscles have to work in perfect harmony just to keep us going,” adds Aunger. “Hopefully my work will help raise awareness for the importance of muscle health and remind you to take good care of yours so you keep making the most of every day — even the everyday activities we take for granted.”
Remember, Every Muscle Matters. Join our community and tag your posts with #fuel657
