Your body contains over 600 muscles that help you move, breathe, and even pump blood through your body. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends you train your muscles at least two times per week. Understanding the muscles in the different areas of your body can help you strengthen, stretch, and even rehabilitate those muscles.
Muscles
The muscles in your body are categorized into three kinds: smooth muscle, cardiac muscle, and skeletal muscle. Smooth muscle is controlled involuntarily by your brain. Examples of smooth muscles are those in your digestive system and urinary tract. Cardiac muscle is found in your heart. It works hard to circulate blood through your body. Skeletal muscles are the kind that you can control. They work with your bones to help your body move and are attached to your bones by tendons. Skeletal muscles are the ones you train with muscle strengthening activities such as weight lifting, yoga and Pilates.
Back Muscles
The most prominent muscles in your back are your erector spinae muscles and your multifidus muscles. Your erector spinae muscles run alongside your spine. They help your body to bend forward and back as well as side to side. They also help stabilize your torso when you are in a stationary position, maintaining the correct curvature of your spine. The mulfidus muscles also run up and down your spine; however, these muscles are responsible not only for helping you bend, but for the twisting motions you make. Their most important job is helping you maintain proper posture.
Hip
The major muscles located in your hip are the gluteal muscles and the hip flexors. Your gluteal muscles are located in your rear end. Together your gluteal maximus, minimus, and medius muscles stabilize your pelvis, help you move your leg, and perform the rotational motion of your hip. Your hip flexor muscles are located along the front of your hip and connect to your thigh bone. They help you lift your legs and also maintain proper posture.
Knee
Your knee is a complicated joint with two muscles that mainly act upon it. Your quadriceps muscles in the front of your thigh and your hamstring muscles in the back of your thigh work together to bend your knee. Not only are these muscles popular in training exercises, they are used frequently in every day life. As a result they are important muscle identify and pay attention to.
