Dr. Andy Galpin

Can it be gross movement?

And can it respond and recover quickly?

So as we continue on this discussion, I'm going to have all three of those goals in mind that really, at the end of the day, it should look a certain way.

It should be resilient, be able to do many things in many areas, but then also be able to execute the exact way that you personally want it to execute.

As a quick example, when we say smooth muscle, think about the tiny muscles involved in digestion, moving food throughout your digestive tract, stuff that is really not under your voluntary control, not really going to respond and change, say, growing in size, increasing in strength in response to a workout or lifestyle interventions.

It's kind of the stuff that moves your life beyond your somatic or cognitive control.

Now, in terms of cardiac, we're really basically talking about one thing, and that's your heart.

There's a few other things that go along with that, but that's basically what we're talking about.

Skeletal muscle is almost everything else.

So it is your biceps muscles, your hamstring muscles, your quadriceps, the things that you have both voluntary and involuntary control over.

They tend to be large muscles, but they can be the small ones as well.

Think of your intercostals, the muscles between your ribs that are

contracted to expand your chest so that you can breathe and bring volume into your lungs.

The small muscles in your eye that control fine motor movement and everything else like that.

So to recap, smooth muscle is the stuff you have very little control over, tends to be the muscles necessary to keep you alive for digestion and breathing and things like that.

Cardiac is effectively your heart.

And then skeletal muscle is basically everything else.

It's the stuff that relegates human movement.

You have both control and involuntary control of it.

They can be large muscles or small muscles.