Your muscle cells are made of units called sarcomeres which are composed of a central support structure called actin and then protein motors called myosin that act as hands that pull on the support to bring two ends of a cell together
Imagine a long rope and you and your friend pull on the rope to bring yourselves together
You have these sarcomeres in the thousands upon thousands in each muscle and they use a lot of energy to do this
You mean inside the cell? A lot of it is transport proteins. Cells also have little fiber like threads running through them called microtubules that the proteins use like catwalks. [Here’s a good short video showing it.](https://youtu.be/y-uuk4Pr2i8) [Here’s a longer one showing and explaining more.](https://youtu.be/WFCvkkDSfIU)
Muscle cells can be visualized as long tubes with a string running through them. The tube is attached on one end. The string is attached somewhere else. The inside of the tube has “hairs” on it. When the muscle contracts, it pulls the string into the tube by bending those hairs to drag it in. This reduces the length of the muscle. When the muscle relaxes, the hairs let go.
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