From the brains behind brains on, this is the Moment of Um. Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Mom. Moment of Um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Anna Weggle.

Um. When I was in second grade, I was at recess and we were playing Red Rover. Do kids play Red Rover anymore? Hold on. Let me check.

Okay, it looks like, wow. Red Rover dates back to the 1930s. And there are variants of the game that stretch all the way back into the 1800s. Okay, I'm not that old. But in case you haven't played it,

it goes like this. Two lines of kids form facing each other. They link hands, and then you say, Red Rover, Red Rover, send blank on over. And then a kid breaks out of their line, and they run as fast as they can to the other line and try to break through a pair of hands. It's actually very dangerous, and we probably shouldn't

have been playing it because one time when it was my turn to break through the hands, I ran very

aggressively and fell and broke my ankle. I was in a cast, and I had to miss a lot of swimmeats and

practices, and it was a rough time for me. Lots of people break a bone at some point in their life. Others

have sprained bones or pulled muscles, but can muscles break in the same way bones can?

Listener Lyren was wondering this.

Hi, I'm Dr. Karen Litsia, a physical therapist based in New York City. And the question is, can muscles break like

bones? Well, the answer is not really. So yes, a muscle can have a strain, which means it has been

pushed beyond what it can normally do.

Like if you, let's say, took off and ran too quickly to reach your friends,

sometimes you'll feel a pain in the back of your leg and your hamstring muscle.

So it's not that that muscle tore, but that you have a strain of that muscle.

And yes, a muscle can tear, which goes beyond a strain into there's so

much extra load put through this muscle that it can no longer sustain its structure. And so you have a

tear in that muscle. So they don't quite break like bones, but you can get a muscle tear.

And then what happens afterwards?

Well, it depends.

So it depends how old you are.

It depends how active you are.

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