prolog

strength

Chapter 1 What is the strength of the body?
Chapter 2 Muscle as Potential
Chapter 3: The Meaning of Lifting Heavy Objects
Chapter 4: A World Where Women Can Be Strong

form

Chapter 5: The Ideal Body
Chapter 6 Who is afraid of the female Hercules?
Chapter 7 Straight Shoulders

action

Chapter 8: Muscles Speak
Chapter 9 Jump Theory
Chapter 10: Movement is the Message

pliability

Chapter 11 Muscles, Fast or Slow
What comes out of Chapter 12 integration
Chapter 13: Memories of past exercise

endurance

Chapter 14 What We Carry
Chapter 15: Running to Remember
Chapter 16: True Fighting Spirit
Chapter 17: Running the Street
Chapter 18: Finding Balance and Kissing the Ground

Epilogue
Acknowledgements

“Muscles have been our strength for most of the time we have been on Earth.
“It was the only engine of humanity.”

Recently, interest in a 'healthy body' has grown more than ever throughout society.
The key here is to create a body with 'muscles'.
In the past, the purpose of dieting and exercise was skewed towards pursuing external beauty, but now, with the trend shifting towards pursuing more fundamental health, the importance of muscles is coming to the fore.
According to biologist Steven Vogel, “Muscles have been the sole engine of humanity for most of our time on Earth.” Just as a car can’t move forward without its engine functioning properly, we can’t walk, run, grasp, or manipulate objects without our muscles functioning properly.
Even life activities cannot continue properly.
In addition to skeletal muscles, which are responsible for the movement of our bodies, muscles also include cardiac muscles, which make the heart beat, and smooth muscles, which are responsible for activities such as pushing food into the intestines and pumping blood through the blood vessels.
Therefore, the most excellent and fundamental answer to the question, 'What moves humans and enables them to live?' is 'muscles.'

Muscle is a non-fiction work by a Hong Kong-American writer, swimmer, and surfer who explores the muscles, a vital organ of our body, from an in-depth and integrative perspective.
Neither an anatomy textbook nor an exercise guide, this book takes a fresh approach to examining the utility of muscles and their many meanings.
This book is about meeting people from all over the world who work with muscles, sometimes participating in anatomy labs, sometimes running or jumping rope with them, and interviewing their lives, all compiled from the author's unique perspective.
The backgrounds of those interviewed by the author are truly diverse.
They include the world record holder for powerlifting, currently the strongest woman on the planet; an anatomy professor and his colleagues; a middle-aged man who has been taking on the 'lake jump challenge' for years; a yoga instructor who overcame his physical limitations in an accident and started a new life; and a boy and his parents who planned and ran a 'memorial run' to honor the unjustly sacrificed Native Americans.
As the author follows the trajectories of their lives, he realizes that muscles are not simply organs that enable 'movement'.


Muscles that mean more than just 'movement'
Muscles are also connected to ‘emotions’, ‘memory’, and ‘recovery’.
Above all, it is the 'hope' that we can become better than we are now.

At first glance, these lives seem to have no connection, but what makes them special is that they perfectly display the characteristics of muscles.
Above all, muscles symbolize ‘strength.’
Here, strength refers to the physical ability to lift heavy objects, but also encompasses psychological and mental abilities, such as the potential hidden within us or the possibility to take charge of our lives.
By using our muscles, we discover the power hidden within us and have the opportunity to rediscover ourselves as human beings with potential, free from the binary world of gender.
Meanwhile, muscles are also a means of expressing emotions and feelings.
For example, when we are happy or joyful, we jump high.
Exercise, such as jumping or running, can also make you feel better due to the neurochemical reactions that occur between your brain and muscles.
We often think of muscles as separate entities from intelligence.
They are even considered as antagonistic entities that take away the brain's resources.
But contrary to this stereotype, the brain and muscles are constantly communicating, interacting, and influencing each other.


Many studies show that long-term brain health depends on muscles and moving them.
In this way, muscles are closely related to the mind.
In fact, strength training has been proven to be effective in developing mental resilience.
A recent study of people recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) found that strength training helped them feel more secure and in control of their bodies.
When you can noticeably improve your physical abilities, it also acts as a catalyst for changing your self-perception.
As we age or suffer unexpected illnesses or accidents, we may find ourselves in situations where we cannot use our bodies freely.
Muscles are also what lead us to recovery in the face of change and loss that shake the very foundations of life.
For example, people who are paralyzed due to injury or disease have limited voluntary movement and surface sensation, which reduces their ability to functionally perceive their own body in space.
However, training the muscles of damaged limbs through yoga practice or other methods can significantly restore lost or weakened body awareness.
Regardless of age, we all have the ability to recover.
Muscles are tissues that adapt and change every day, and they have the remarkable ability to continue functioning when given the right conditions.

Training muscles requires endurance.
Strong muscles don't just happen.
It is a medal of perseverance that only those who have overcome times of sweat and tears can obtain.
Even when my whole body is screaming at me to stop, what keeps me going and moving is my own clear reason.
The clearer this reason, which can also be called the 'purpose of life', the more we can run forward without getting tired.
Just as a marathon runner races toward the finish line, or a powerlifter pushes his or her limits by increasing the weight, we can build and strengthen our own muscles little by little every day.
If I maintain the virtue of consistency, I can achieve more today than I did yesterday.
Muscles are beautiful and wonderful organs that support the center of our lives (core) both physically and mentally.


“Strength, form, action, flexibility, endurance—these are all characteristics of muscle and the qualities we strive for as humans.
This constant push and pull between the physical and the philosophical reveals much.
Elegance, beauty and grace come from a natural, seemingly effortless movement.
But we all know that nothing is achieved without effort.
Now let's take a look at the effort behind that seemingly comfortable movement.
Let us honor all the time and effort it takes to feel connected to something or someone, for that moment when body and world become one.
To exist fully in the ballet of life that surrounds us.
“What I’ve learned from this journey is that muscles are a very complex representation of what we desire and who we want to be.”

A harmonious blend of scientific facts, literary value, and personal experience,
The most beautiful and ecstatic hymn to muscle!

Although the book is classified as science nonfiction, each chapter features the author's personal reflections on his past.
The character who occupies the largest portion of the author's recollections is her father.
The author's father was a professional artist, and his work was so impressive that he even won an Emmy Award in the 1970s.
Her father was such a sports enthusiast that when she was young, the author's house had a makeshift gym equipped with dumbbells, grip strength machines, a horizontal bar, nunchucks, a jump rope, and a sandbag.
Due to this influence, the author experienced the joy of 'moving the body' early on, participating in various physical activities such as swimming, jumping rope, and bodyweight exercises with her older brother from a young age.


“Every evening in the garage, we would line up and practice front kicks, side kicks, roundhouse kicks, and other moves.
My father asked me to hold his legs while he did sit-ups.
Or he would pick Andy and me up and rock us back and forth, hanging on his arm like two baby monkeys.
After dinner, I ran with my dad under the yellow glow of the neighborhood streetlights to the parking lot a mile away behind the pediatric hospital.
We chased fireflies and chased dad.
What did we learn from all this early training as children? We learned that while nighttime exercise was routine for our family, it wasn't for others, and that being strong was equally good for us all.

The act of consistently moving and training his body was like remembering and reflecting on the legacy his father had left him.
The author, a swimmer and surfer who enjoys push-ups and handstands and who has never given up on exercise in his life, can be attributed to his father who taught him from an early age how to use his muscles and train his body.
As the author confesses, “Art and exercise were the links that connected me and my father,” these physical memories of childhood engraved in the muscles can also serve as a medium to restore the relationship between a father and a daughter that has been in crisis since adolescence.
This book, beautifully written with gratitude and affection for the person who made me feel like I could do anything, is a brilliant example of how a meticulously reconstructed personal experience can achieve universality and resonate deeply.


In order to build muscle, muscle fibers must be damaged by tension and stress.
The muscles then recover and become stronger than before by activating special stem cells that fuse with the fibers to increase their size and mass.
Muscle cells do not develop unless you exercise beyond your usual level of fitness.
That is, we grow further as we go through the process of enduring a series of difficulties.
This very mechanism of muscle training is in itself a wonderful metaphor for life.
We stumble, fall, and get hurt countless times in life and in relationships.
But instead of just sitting there where you fell, you can choose to get up and move forward.
When we wake up and move the muscles of our body and mind again, we become agents who exercise autonomy over our lives and bodies.
This is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn how to train their muscles better, as well as for anyone who wants to know how and in what ways physical exercise can enrich and beautify our lives.


“Every day, my muscles remind me of what I need to remember as a human being.
The lesson for today is clear.
We are essentially ourselves, but we can change.
Sometimes the process is painful.
Because transformation can be ugly.
But we keep trying until we finally reach something we find beautiful.”