[0:06]We have primal strength, we do not discover unless our lives depend on it. And our bodies hide an even more amazing ability. The strength to move hundreds of muscles in harmony.
[0:22]The human body can move with infinite variation. All of it powered by more than 600 muscles.
[0:32]But on its own, any one of those muscles is virtually useless. Everything we do requires many muscles working in perfect harmony.
[0:46]Simply walking involves the coordination of 200 muscles. Steering a car 100. And it takes 70 muscles just to lift a cup of coffee.
[1:00]It's really a very simple mechanism in that we send nervous impulses through the nervous system to the muscles. And if it's all worked together very tightly and in a very organized synchronized pattern, we can perform these skills. Not all muscles have the same number of controlling nerves. The body's biggest muscles in our legs take orders from 500 nerves. These muscles have the most pulling power. Yet the real magic is not how we control big muscles. But how we control the small ones. 4,000 nerves control the muscles in our body's most complex and useful instruments. The hands.
[1:45]Each hand has 27 bones, 30 individual muscles, and more than 1,600 km of nerve fibers and blood vessels.
[1:58]Coordinating all this takes a lot of brain power. Merely controlling our hands takes up almost half the movement coordinating centers of our brain. A set of connections between brain cells governs every action. But we are not born with these connections, we have to learn them. We gain and maintain this strength throughout our lives. And one place we learn to unleash this power is in bed, asleep.
[2:35]Each time a football player kicks a ball, his brain records and stores his muscle strength and timing. Making each successive attempt easier. Soon, without thinking, signals fly down to the muscles at more than 100 meters per second. And then, the move becomes automatic.
[3:04]This training continues off the pitch. Overnight.
[3:12]Coach always tells us to go to us like rest, go to sleep early and everything because if we don't sleep like it affects us in our game like we don't want to play or anything like that.
[3:22]Sleep brings Marco Pulido more than just rest.
[3:30]While he sleeps, the skills he's been practicing all day are reinforced.
[3:39]For all of us, the brain's activity while dreaming could be as important in strengthening our skills as when we're awake and practicing. On average, we each spend six years of our lives dreaming. And while we dream, we're consolidating control of our muscles.
