What is the form of energy which is released through ATP hydrolysis?

Question

Is it kind of small explosion of heat energy which moves Myosin, similar to combustion in internal combustion engine? or electrons are released in the process which moves the filaments kind of thing? I can't imagine any other form of energy which moves muscle.

It seems from thepaxilman answer that main energy is of electrostatic kind. It might be close to the term Chemiosmotic.

Answer 1

Chemiosmotic: The energy is stored in an transmembrane proton gradient. That yields both an electrostatic charge difference across the membrane, and a pH gradient. Anything inefficient in this ATP -> chemiosmotic energy transduction is heat.

Answer 2

The ATP has been formed via chemiosmotic gradient-harvesting ATP sythase, but doesn't generate such a gradient when it is used. In use, the ATP typically will use one of two strategies, each of which does produce heat. It's not known whether the heat helps. In the first strategy, the ATP participates in a two step reaction, with its energy harvested in the first step to make a compound unstable, and then in the second step that compound either reacts with something else or breaks down. Thus here its chemical energy that was needed. In the second strategy, the phosphate is used to make the shapes/charge distribution of molecules (often of proteins) more favorable for interaction with another protein. This mechanism is the one involved in muscle movement. The breakdown of the ATP does give both heat and chemical energy, but here its task is to make the desired protein-protein interactions more possible.