In my first post about heart anatomy (which you can read here), I told you about the basic structure of the heart. Today’s Monday Muscle Anatomy is about the muscle the heart is made up of, called cardiac muscle.
Cardiac muscle is one of the three major types of muscle. The other two types are smooth and skeletal. Unlike smooth and skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle is only found in one area of the body, the heart. Cardiac muscle tissue is made up of many interlocking cells that work together to make the heart beat and pump blood throughout the body.
What It Does – Each cardiac muscle fiber is striated (striped). When the muscle fibers contract, chemicals in the striations react and cause the filaments to shrink the muscle cell, which causes it to contract. Millions of the cardiac muscle cells work together to pump blood throughout the whole entire body in less than a minute.
Exercise – Check out my next post and I’ll show you how to do the Breaststroke.