How many muscles are there in our body?

*** Muscles—Masterpieces of Design
LIFE is sustained through movement. For example, your chest rises and falls with each breath, and your heart beats rhythmically, keeping you alive. What causes these movements? Muscles!

Muscles are tough, elastic tissues that enable your body parts to function and to express your thoughts and feelings in actions. Whether the action is smiling, laughing, crying, talking, walking, running, working, playing, reading, or eating, muscles are involved. It is hard to think of anything you do that does not involve a muscle.

There are about 650 muscles in your body. The smallest are attached to the tiniest bones, found in the ear. The largest are the gluteus muscles in the buttocks, which move the legs. Making up about one half of a man’s body weight and about one third of a woman’s, muscles are designed for work. They are considered “biological engines,” and they ‘transform more energy into motion each day than all man-made engines combined, including the automobile,’ observed Gerald H. Pollack, a professor of bioengineering.

Even when you are resting, your muscles remain in a state of readiness—ready to be called into action. At any given time, some fibers in each muscle are contracted. Without this slight contraction, your jaw would hang open and your body’s internal organs would have little support. Even while you are standing or sitting, your muscles make slight adjustments to help maintain your posture or to keep you from falling off your chair.