---
title: "How many muscles are in the human body? about 600 skeletal mus"
description: "about 600 skeletal muscles How the figure is estimated, how confident it is, and what makes the scale graspable."
url: https://atoneplace.net/how-many/muscles-in-the-human-body/
site: "At One Place"
---

# How many muscles are in the human body?

**How many muscles are in the human body?: about 600 skeletal muscles**

Skeletal muscle is roughly 40% of body mass in an average adult male. The smallest, the stapedius in the middle ear, is about one millimetre long.

The usual answer is about 600 skeletal muscles, but published counts run from 600 to 850 depending on whether a muscle with several heads counts as one or several — the biceps has two heads, the triceps three, the quadriceps four, and treating each as a separate muscle adds hundreds. That is only the muscles you can consciously control. Smooth muscle lines the gut, the blood vessels and the airways, and cardiac muscle is a third type again; counting those as discrete muscles is not meaningful.

## How the figure is arrived at

Dissection and convention. Because a muscle is defined by its origin, insertion and nerve supply, a structure with two origins can legitimately be described either way, and anatomists have never fully agreed. Any source giving a single precise number without stating its convention is over-claiming.

## How confident it is

- **Low estimate:** 600
- **High estimate:** 850
- **Spread:** 1.4× between the bounds

## Other the human body counts

- [How many bones are in the human body?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/bones-in-the-human-body/) — 206 in an adult — about 300 at birth
- [How many cells are in the human body?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/cells-in-the-human-body/) — about 30 trillion human cells, plus 38 trillion bacteria
- [How many neurons are in the human brain?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/neurons-in-the-brain/) — about 86 billion
- [How many hairs are on your head?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/hairs-on-your-head/) — about 100,000
- [How many taste buds do you have?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/taste-buds/) — about 2,000 to 8,000
- [How long are all your blood vessels?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/blood-vessels-length/) — commonly quoted as 100,000 km — but probably closer to 20,000
- [How many base pairs are in human DNA?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/dna-base-pairs/) — about 3.1 billion per copy — 6.2 billion in most cells

## Common questions

### How many muscles are in the human body?

about 600 skeletal muscles

### How is that estimated?

Dissection and convention. Because a muscle is defined by its origin, insertion and nerve supply, a structure with two origins can legitimately be described either way, and anatomists have never fully agreed. Any source giving a single precise number without stating its convention is over-claiming.

## Related pages

- [How many bones are in the human body?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/bones-in-the-human-body/)
- [How many cells are in the human body?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/cells-in-the-human-body/)
- [How many neurons are in the human brain?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/neurons-in-the-brain/)
- [How many hairs are on your head?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/hairs-on-your-head/)
- [How many taste buds do you have?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/taste-buds/)
- [How long are all your blood vessels?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/blood-vessels-length/)
- [How many base pairs are in human DNA?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/dna-base-pairs/)
- [How many people are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/people-alive-right-now/)
- [How many stars are there in the universe?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/stars-in-the-universe/)
- [How many countries are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/countries/)
- [How many grains of sand are there on Earth?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/grains-of-sand-on-earth/)
- [How many ants are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/ants-on-earth/)
- [How many trees are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/trees-on-earth/)

## Sources

- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/)