pull a heart muscle v. phr. to withdraw, back out, or retreat from a competition, conflict, or obligation; to chicken out. Editorial Note: To pull a heart muscle is similar to having tiny heart syndrome. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
In one episode of The Great Pottery Throwdown, a soothing British reality show that features amateur ceramicists, someone jokes about spending a night on the tiles. In this case, the phrase has nothing to do with crafting tiles from clay. A night on...
Diane, a bridge player from Wilmington, North Carolina, asks about sitting with the bathtub, a phrase her friend uses for a lopsided game where one pair keeps getting the good cards. The phrase appears in newspaper columns about bridge starting in...