In the human body, there are over 600 muscles. Each muscle helps our body move, stand up straight, keeps our heart beating, and many more reasons. Though there are over 600 muscles in the body, there are only 3 different types of muscles. The three different types of muscles are cardiac, skeletal, and smooth muscle. The only cardiac muscle in the body is the heart. Skeletal muscles are the muscles that give us our shape and allow us to be able to move. Some examples of skeletal muscles are the abdominals, deltoids, pectorals, and gluteal muscles. Smooth muscles are the muscles that make up the organs, like the stomach, lungs, and intestines. These 3 different types of muscles all have different characteristics.

The different characteristics of the muscles can be voluntary, when you think about it so the muscle can move, and involuntary, when you the muscle does work on its own without you having to think about it. The physical characteristics of the muscles are striated, looks like stripes or lines running through the muscle, and visceral, or without stripes. The cardiac muscle is striated and involuntary, you do not need to think about it for your heart to beat… If we do, we’d be in big trouble. Smooth muscles are visceral and involuntary. Just like we don’t need to think about our heart beating, we don’t need to think about our food digesting or our lungs expanding as we breath. Now, skeletal muscles are striated and voluntary. We have to choose to move our arms or out legs.

Though we have 3 different types of muscles in our body, they each play an important role to keep up alive and safe. If you take care of the muscles in your body you can live a long and healthy life. You can take care of your muscles by eating healthy, staying hydrated, and exercising.