Question: why do you have muscles

Juan Carlos Lopez-Baez answered on 12 Mar 2014:

Hello @ellisben5t

Very nice question there! Well, I have muscles for the same reason that you have muscles, to support and move our bodies. If we didn’t have muscles we will just be skin and bones…and worst, skin and bones that could not move anywhere or even stand up!

The muscles in our bodies are not just the muscles that you see in your arms and legs, but we also have other internal muscles. We actually have 3 types of muscles in our bodies:

1. Skeletal muscle – which help us move, holds our posture and gives us strength. They support the skeleton
2. Cardiac muscle – these are the muscles of the heart and are constantly beating to keep us alive
3. Smooth muscle – this might surprise you, but these are the muscles that we have in our veins and arteries that regulate our blood flow, the muscles that we have on our trachea and oesophagus to help us breathe and eat, and the muscles that we have in our stomach and intestines, which help us digest our food.

As you can see muscles are very important for our bodies and for that reason they make around 40% of your body weight!

Did you know that muscles are the only tissues in your body that can extend and contract? It is this contraction that causes you to sweat when you exercise as, as your muscles contract they produce heat which rises the temperature of your body and makes you sweat to cool down