The Unfairness of Life - Cats Have Great Muscle Tone Despite Sleeping All Day

[SoDesuKa]

It's unfair - cats do nothing but sleep all day, yet they have marvelous muscle tone. Ever feel a cat's leg muscles? No wonder they can jump from the floor to the top of the fridge. But if you or I lived like a cat, our muscles would turn to flab in a couple of weeks.

Maybe it's the diet. I don't think I'll start eating cat food to be as svelte as a typical cat, but if I thought it would work I might consider it. Cats also have amazing hearing. Those big scoops they have for ears might as well be radar antennas . . . and they can even rotate them. But hands down, the thing that amazes me about cats is their fabulous muscles.

[sasquatch]

1. I think its all of that ninja training they do when they're younger

[Archae]

2. Cats are beautiful predators.

They can move silently, with those incredible muscles, they can tie themselves up in knots, jump up or across immense distances, see in very low light, hear noises we never do, smell stuff we never do, so what do my two predators hunt?

Confortable places to nap. :-)

[charlie and algernon]

3. even my fat cat can move lightning quick when she wants too

she's a portly girl at 14 pounds, but when she wants can zip across the room and jump 2 feet to get onto the bed.

[Jamastiene]

4. Cats meditate and do calisthenics.

If you pay very close attention to when a cat sits or lays with their front two paws tucked under them or even sometimes just when they are sitting around, you will see that far away look in their eyes. They are meditating and doing calisthenics. Also, they tense up and walk on the tip ends of their toes when they walk. So, it's like they are doing ballet too. Cats are fascinating if you really ever just watch them.

I read about all this in a book once. That is how I knew to look for it. The Fur Person by May Sarton is an excellent book about cats. It is written as a fiction story, but it reveals incredible insight into a cat's mind and daily rituals. I know just from reading that book that when my cat, Yogi, looks out the window in the morning, he is "reading the cat paper."

It all may sound silly at first, but I believe it to be true. Yoga and other muscle tightening exercises are good for you anyhow. :shrug:

[1]

5. heh. google "charles atlas" and "dynamic tension" if you have some time...

charles was a fixture as the "97 pound weakling" in comic books of my youth. he became a muscleman based on the exact question you just posed. he answered that question based on dynamic tension.

i don't know. maybe he was a con-man, maybe he was a genius.

all i know is that my little kitty olive sleeps all day, as she has a body i would kill for... if i were a kitty...