How do we move our body?

Wiggle your fingers. Wave your hand. Easy, right? But behind that little wave is a busy team working faster than you can blink.

Speedy messages from the brain

It all starts in your brain, the boss of your body. The moment you decide to move, your brain fires off a message. The message zooms along thin wires inside you called nerves, which reach into every part of your body.

The message races so fast it gets to your hand almost the instant you think it!

Muscles pull on bones

The message arrives at your muscles — the soft, stretchy parts under your skin. When a muscle gets the signal, it gives a squeeze and gets shorter. As it shortens, it tugs on a bone.

Your bones meet at bendy spots called joints, like your elbow and your knee. When a muscle pulls a bone across a joint, that part of you bends or lifts. That is how you move!

Working in teams

Here is the clever bit: a muscle can only pull, never push. So muscles work in pairs. One muscle pulls your arm up. To straighten it again, a different muscle on the other side pulls it back down. They take turns, like two friends on a seesaw.

Wonder fact: Even when you sit perfectly still, tiny muscles keep working — your heart is a muscle that squeezes all day and all night without ever taking a break!