.... One of the most amazing things about the human body is the incredible amount
of movement we do every day. This activity can only happen because of our muscles
in our muscular system. The muscles are the "machine" of our body.They also help
move food from one organ to another.

....Your body has more than six hundred muscles.  They are divided into three types: 
the skeletal muscles, the smooth muscles, and the cardiac muscle. The first main
type of muscles is your skeletal muscle. Your skeletal muscles are connected to the
bones in your body. They make your legs, fingers, arms, heads and other body
parts move. You can control your skeletal muscles and so that is called the
"voluntary muscles".

....The second main type of your muscles are the "smooth muscles". You can find
these muscles in the body’s internal organs.  They control the diameter of blood
vessels and the size of breathing space.  The smooth muscles have a wall protection
to allow food to pass through the digestive system. The third main type is called
the "cardiac muscle" but is actually a combination of both skeletal and smooth muscles.
Cardiac muscles are involuntary and found only in the heart. They are controlled by
the lower section of the brain called the "medullaa olblungata", which controls
involuntary action throughout your body. It would be horrible to have to consciously
tell your heart to beat. If you were to forget, you would die. Like a smooth muscle,
the cardiac muscle contracts automatically in rhythmic time. Over the life of a person,
the adult heart beats an average of 70 beats per minute without resting. The heart of
children beats faster.

Watch this short video clip about how to measure how fast
your heart is beating.

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