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What is the Strongest Muscle in the Human Body?

Tags: muscle

Many people ask what the strongest Muscle in the human body is; to answer this, one must define “strongest” according to various measures of strength such as absolute strength, power output and endurance. According to these definitions, your heart would be considered to be the strongest.

But if we define largest muscle in general as your gluteus maximus – commonly referred to as your buttocks.

The Heart

There are three distinct kinds of muscles: smooth, skeletal and cardiac. Smooth muscles are involuntary and make up the walls of blood vessels, uterus linings, intestinal walls and internal eye muscles; while skeletal muscles help with movement of limbs. Finally, cardiac muscles pump blood throughout your body – there are over 600 in total! Each type has specific functions.

Answering this question depends on your definition of “strongest.” If maximum force is what matters most, the masseter muscle in your jaw might come close; its force can apply up to 200 pounds of pressure when chewing molars. But many would rather consider cumulative work accomplished over a lifetime and in this instance the heart stands out as the clear winner; with every heartbeat pumping approximately 2 ounces of blood out each time; beating more than 2,500 times every day over its lifespan and approximately 2.5 billion times throughout human existence!

Although it’s obvious which muscle wins this competition – the heart – it is more challenging to determine what muscle or muscles are generally strongest. There are various methods for measuring strength including maximum force, dynamic strength and endurance; additionally it may be hard to compare individual muscles since they rarely work alone – just think of when reading a book: Your eye muscles constantly adapting so words appear clear on the page!

Many have heard the tongue is one of the strongest muscles in our bodies, but this claim is false. The tongue is actually comprised of eight separate muscles. To test its strength, scientists usually insert an air-filled bulb and ask subjects to push as hard as they can toward the roof of their mouth as hard as they can – which may prove misleading since the tongue’s structure consists of interlinked muscle bundles similar to an octopus tentacle or elephant trunk.

The Gluteus Maximus

One of the largest muscles in our bodies is the gluteus maximus, a large buttock muscle located just beneath our buttocks. This powerful extensor of hip joint helps bring trunk from an extended to upright position while maintaining proper posture; any weakening in its function or damage could lead to people slumping forward when rising from chairs, for instance.

There is no single, definitive answer as to which muscle is the strongest. Muscle strength depends on a range of factors, including their size and the amount of blood flowing to them. Furthermore, some muscles work collaboratively with others in order to complete tasks, making it hard to assign sole responsibility to one muscle for performing them.

Measuring muscle strength involves its capacity for producing force. According to the Library of Congress, masseter muscles (one on either side of the jaw) have an incredible maximum bite force of 975 pounds, enabling them to close mouth with such force when working alongside three other jaw muscles: temporalis, lateral pterygoid and medial pterygoid.

The quadriceps femoris is a group of four muscles located in the front of the thigh that work to extend knees and maintain leg stability. Although relatively short in length, this muscle packs incredible force – up to 340 pounds of force! This force exceeds twice what would be produced by even leg bone itself!

There are other muscles capable of creating considerable force, like the soleus in the calf. As one of the largest muscles in your lower leg, its massive strength enables it to support all of your body weight as you walk, run or jump – yet due to injury risk it does not offer as high functional strength compared with some other muscles.

The Uterus

Uterus muscles in the pelvic region may possess some of the strongest muscles if strength is measured solely by how much weight they can push, however there are a number of additional criteria which must be fulfilled for any muscle to qualify as exceptionally strong.

One factor is how much pressure a muscle can exert; the masseter muscle (jaw muscle) excels at this. Another is being able to contract and relax repeatedly – something the uterus muscles do extremely well, making them extremely strong as well as helping make childbirth possible.

Your uterus is a pear-shaped organ located within your pelvis. It consists of thick muscular walls surrounding a central cavity with abundant blood vessels that supply its inner lining known as endometrium, providing nourishment during gestation as well as being shed each month through menstruation.

There are three components to a uterus: the fundus, corpus and cervix. The fundus connects directly with your fallopian tubes; corpus forms your main body of the uterus while cervix serves as its lower part that opens into vagina.

Each component of your uterus consists of different muscle groups. At its core is the perimetrium – composed of fibrous tissue that wraps around your uterus and houses myometrium and endometrium cells – as well as lymphatic vessels draining to a system known as the Uterine Lymphatics for drainage.

The uterus muscles contain many muscle fibers arranged longitudinally and obliquely, while myometrium and endometrium contain similar numbers of fibers that are organized longitudinally and obliquely. Innervated by nerves from the inferior hypogastric plexus and T12 to L1 spinal segments respectively, while myometrium/endometrium innervation comes via T1 to T4 spinal segments respectively. Finally, your tongue’s three muscles–hyoglossus/ styloglossus/palatoglossus/palatoglossus–work together on either side to protrude/depress/retract it.

The Masseter

Some would contend that the heart muscle should be considered the strongest. After all, it pumps out two ounces (71 grams) with every heartbeat and can do this three billion times during one lifetime! But when looking at externally measurable force output by muscles it would likely be jaw muscles (masseter).

When assessing which is the strongest muscle in a human body, certain parameters must be taken into account. No single muscle can be considered “strongest”, since each performs essential roles that contribute to overall body functioning. Also noteworthy is that muscles with greater cross-sectional area typically generate greater externally measurable force output.

Soleus muscle, located in the calf, has the greatest cross-sectional area and thus generates the greatest force, but is less prominent as an indicator of strength due to its relatively smaller masseter size and force output. Conversely, soleus is integral in providing the body with mobility; its role being walking, running and dancing as it pulls against gravity with great strength.

The jaw muscle is an indispensable element in the process of mastication (chewing). When working together with three other muscles – temporalis, lateral pterygoid and medial pterygoid – this powerful muscle can close your mouth with up to 55 pounds on an incisor tooth or 200 pounds (90.7 kilograms) on molars when closing in conjunction with other teeth.

Based on these parameters, it can be concluded that the jaw muscle or masseter is indeed the strongest muscle in human anatomy. But we still need to factor in another way of measuring muscle strength: looking at force output when required minimum effort.



This post first appeared on CNNislands - Some New Ideas To Grow Your Business, please read the originial post: here

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What is the Strongest Muscle in the Human Body?

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