 Muscles are a very important type of tissue that allow us to perform many functions, from simpler actions such as blinking our eyes and chewing our food to more complex ones such as swimming and playing football. Muscles are essentially bundles of fibers that expand and contract to help make movement possible. These fibers are mostly repeating units of actin and myosin protein chains. If you have larger muscles, it does not mean that you have more fibers. It means that the fibers are just much larger. There are three types of muscles in our body, skeletal, smooth, and cardiac. Skeletal muscles, as suggested in their name, are attached to our skeleton or bones via tendons. As we control their movement, they are also known as voluntary muscles. Their striped appearance gives them yet another name, striated muscles. These muscles enable us to walk, stop, and lift things up in our arms. There are two types of skeletal muscles, fast twitch and slow twitch. Although fast twitch muscles expand and contract very quickly and are thus responsible for powerful movements, they become tired very quickly. If you jump very quickly into the air, you can probably only do it a few times before feeling exhausted. On the other hand, slow twitch muscles move much slower, but tire a lot less easily. For instance, you can write with a pen for quite some time in your hand before it actually gets really tired. Smooth muscles, which make up your blood vessels, stomach lining, and other organ linings are involuntary muscles as their movement is not under our control. For example, it is impossible for us to tell our stomach to churn and digest our food faster. Cardiac muscles that make up our heart are able to work continuously without tiring. Like smooth muscles, cardiac muscles are also involuntary. We cannot make our heart work faster or slower. In conclusion, there are three types of muscles found in our body, all of which have specific structures and functions. Until next time!