– What exactly is the ‘energy’ stored in our cells. How does a chemical reaction in our body enable us to lift heavy things or run vast distances?
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This is [what they teach](https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_General_Biology/Book%3A_Introductory_Biology_(CK-12)/13%3A_Human_Biology/13.01%3A_Muscle_Contraction#:~:text=The%20most%20widely%20accepted%20theory,the%20actin%20filaments%20closer%20together) in college physiology and anatomy.
The idea is that beads of muscle slide over each other as reactive minerals like calcium get released.
The ‘energy’ is adenosine triphosphate, used by all life on Earth. It stores energy in its chemical bonds that is released upon reaction inside mitochrondria or chloroplasts. The mechanism is quite complicated.
ATP, sugar, fat.
ATP decays really quickly, so it’s a use it or lose it sort of thing.
Sugar lasts a little while. Fat is long-term energy storage. Your body can do various things to turn fat into sugar and sugar into ATP and back.
Of all the various things our cells use ATP for, muscles consume a lot of it. The details of which are……[whew, kinda deep and complicated](https://www.uwyo.edu/bio1000skh/lecture17.htm). The muscle cells are kinda like little balloons, stretched out on two anchors. On getting a signal from a nerve, the muscles pour in calcium causing the balloon to inflate, pulling in each end. They burn ATP to fuel the pumps that put the calcium back in it’s… uh, storage? There’s a second bit where the anchors on both ends have to do some work to grab a hold further up.
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