Some Muscles You Use Every Day and Might Not Even Notice!

A lot!

But let’s focus on just five for now…

An obvious one would be your heart

This ~300 gram organ-just under a pound for fellow yanks-supports your body and beats about 3 billion times on average. We rarely notice it during day to day activities, but if it went on strike for even just a few seconds, we definitely would!

Another would be the diaphragm. This muscle is just below the heart, and is responsible for every breath you take. When it contracts, it creates a vacuum, forcing delicious, life-giving Oxygen (O2) to be drawn into the lungs. When it relaxes, the vacuum releases and the air flows out-filled with Carbon Dioxide (CO2).

You should thank the diaphragm, because every time it contracts then relaxes, you are losing weight in the form of Carbon!

Another muscle group that we rarely notice but are working almost all the time are your spinal erectors. These muscles are responsible for keeping your torso erect when walking or sitting.

Unless you are lying down, these muscles are active…but we almost never think about them at all! If they didn’t exist, you’d faceplant your keyboard at work within seconds!

Another group of muscles that we only really notice when something goes wrong is the neck. This complex set of muscles is responsible for any motion of the head that you can imagine. Up, down, nodding, side to side, twisting, back and forth, headbanging…all of that movement is from muscle.

Strain any muscle in your neck, and you will soon realize how important they are, and how much we use them on a daily basis.

Finally, the face muscles are something I guarantee not one person in a thousand has thought about in depth. Now you have, at least a bit!

When we are happy, we smile. We don’t think about it, but muscles are contracting to make that happen.

The Zygomaticus major and minor pull up the corners of your mouth, the Levator labii superioris pulls up the corner of the lip and nose, while the Levator anguli oris helps to raise the angle of mouth.

What you have now is known as a “Duchenne smile” or a fake smile. This is the “I secretly hate you but can’t show it” or “I’m uncomfortable” smile. If you see this, be careful.