Muscle strains are one of the most common ways to get injured during exercise. They can also be one of the least serious injuries. Depending on how bad your muscle strain is, a muscle strain may be just a case of stiffness in the injury site that lasts a few days or weeks. Muscle strains are injuries to your muscles and tendons which can cause pain, bruising, swelling, and tenderness at the site of your injury. This article explains everything you need to know about muscle strains!
What are muscles?
Muscles are a vital component of our day-to-day life, as they help us breathe, digest food, speak, run, jump, and most importantly, they keep our hearts beating. There are two types of muscles: smooth (involuntarily controlled) and striated or skeletal (voluntary controlled) muscles. The heart is a special kind of muscle as it has the microscopical aspect and function of a striated muscle and the characteristics of a smooth muscle, as we have no control over its beating. Smooth muscles ensure the proper function of our organs, and skeletal muscles are responsible for locomotion.
The skeletal muscles are made of muscle fibers and layers of connective tissue. About 250 muscle fibers bundle together and form an endomysium, which is considered the functional unit of the muscles, also known as the primary bundle. A lot of these primary bundles are formed, and then, they, too, bundle together and then are wrapped all around by the perimysium, thus the secondary bundle forms. Finally, the entire muscle is encircled by the epimysium. Muscles are separated from the surrounding structures by their fascia, which is a thin, tight-wrapped layer of connective tissue. Aside from protecting the muscles from their surroundings, the fascia also plays a role in binding parts of the body together.