like literally what the title says do the muscles relax like they do when you're alive and you're just like "uuUH" and relaxx
When animals die, humans steal the muscles and eat them, when we die, cannibals steal the muscles and eat them, when plants die, they don't have any muscles but get eaten any way. Does this help? I can do science, yes.
The most noticeable changes to the muscles after death are an extreme stiffness that one would not necessarily expect from a cadaver, termed rigor mortis. Ordinarily the dead body by itself would have generally locked up a bit due to the shutdown of all systems, but speaking specifically of changes in the muscles, they essentially become extremely "tense" (used loosely) before loosening prior to putrefaction and decomposition. Your body utilises oxygen for the cellular respiration of its cells, the system of which creates, in basic terms, a chemical "token" that is used as the "currency of energy". When the body ceases to function, this "token" stops production, and therefore the lack of energy being transferred among the cells ceases general movement in the body. One use of the "token" is in the "pumps" that are involved in the ions needed for muscle contraction, done by the muscle cells. Without the "token" being produced and used as a source of energy, the ion concentration of the muscle cells moves in such a way that the muscle cells take a permanently "contracted" state. This is the stiffness you feel in the muscles of someone who has been dead for approximately 12 hours. Beyond this point, chemical decomposition kicks in and the body's structures begin to decay further, "loosening" the muscles.
