Muscular System

A sprain is a stretched or torn ligament.

A strain is a stretched or torn muscle.  

When a muscle cramps, the entire muscle contracts strongly and stays contracted. 

One can develop muscle aches when you have overused a muscle during physical activity.

While muscle aches can be painful for hours, musclespasms (aka “charley horses”) are usually painful for brief periods of time. Although they can happen for a variety of reasons, most of the time they occur because the muscle has been overstretched/held in one position for a long time or you are dehydrated (your body doesn’t have enough water/fluids). 

Muscle tone is usually referred to as muscles that are visible and defined with a firm appearance. Scientifically, muscle tone is the amount of muscle contraction when the muscles are at rest. 

Our muscles can move involuntarily (on their own) in response to something happening to them. For instance, when you are getting a physical, the doctor may tap your patellar tendon (break those words apart to find out what it is) with an instrument to see if your muscles contract on their own. This is one example of a reflex.

As a suffix, “-trophy” means size.

Atrophy is the wasting away or decrease in size and strength of muscles. You need to use your muscles to keep your muscles. 

Hypertrophy is the opposite. As a prefix, “hyper-“ means above, over, or in excess.

Hypertrophy is when your muscles get bigger from the cells in your muscle tissue getting bigger that is caused from the muscles getting used in excess. Body builders do this on purpose to get bigger muscles. However, it is bad news if the muscle tissue in your heart becomes hypertrophied.