There are over 600 skeletal muscles in the body.
That’s a lot, right? Did you know that at this very moment you’re not using most of [the 600 skeletal muscles in your body] them? Even if you work out regularly. (In a minute I’ll give you some quick and easy tips to turn that around and use more of your strength).
But why do you need to know about these muscles and what are the implications of not using them?
The skeletal muscles are divided into two categories: Phasic & Intrinsic.
The phasic muscles are the big ones that you probably know the name of (glutes, hamstrings, biceps, triceps, etc) and are responsible for big movements, like walking up a flight of stairs, picking up a bag of groceries, even walking across the room. These muscles are the ones you see in the mirror changing contour resulting from working out and because of that are nick named “mirror muscles”. Most often, this group is targeted by Personal Trainers and workouts. While these big muscles are present for big movements, there are only a few handfuls of them leaving hundreds of muscles in the other group, intrinsic.
BIG (Phasic) Muscles = BIG Movments (as seen in the image above)
Intrinsic muscles are not seen in the mirror and it is rare that the name of even one of them would sound familiar. These muscles are very deep in the body and line along the bones. For that reason, they are not palpable and not easy to keep track of.
Their job is two-fold: posture and balance.
Posture and Balance = Intrinsic Muscles
At any given time looking around a room of people, most are not utilizing optimal posture which means the intrinsic muscles are not being used. If any skeletal muscle is not used within 24 hours, the atrophy process begins. This means that while we sit and stand in ways that don’t reflect good posture, we are weakening hundreds of muscles in our body.
I promised you some tips to address your intrinsic muscles. In fact, I already shared these tips with you in The Schatz Method™ body guide! If you don’t have yours, CLICK HERE and let us know you need a copy. We’ll send that out to you right away.
Using all my muscles 🙂
Developer of The Schatz Method™
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