Donations to Discovery

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Don't Isolate Your Movements.... Expand Your Movements!

This could apply to a lot of things in Life but in this case I'm talking about....

Your workout....

Or more appropriately, my observation of how people work out.

First, let me say I'm not putting anyone down or criticizing anyone's efforts to better themselves.

Hell.... they're at the gym.... that's 80% of the battle - right?

Well.... yes.... and no.

Just hear me out.

Here's the path.

Person wants to get in shape.... or stay in shape.... and most of those people.... probably like 99% have no formal training in exercise physiology / kinesiology and have done little or no research on how to properly exercise for maximum benefit.... the most research they've done is to Google fitness centers in their area.

So they go to the gym, get a membership and are shown through a circuit of machines that carve out a defined path of movement for a given muscle group.  Most people don't get beyond that.

So they do an overhead press while sitting down.... or they do a leg press while sitting down....

Maybe they venture over to the bench press and do a press..... while laying down.

And for those few intrepid souls.... they may venture over to the squat rack and shoulder the bar and do a 3/4 squat.... maybe.

I mean until I went to CrossFit, I could count on 2 hands the number of people I ever saw do a full blown parallel or below parallel squat with any kind of weight (225# or more) in 20 years of gym experience.

My point is that most people that go to the gym to workout out spend most of their time (maybe an hour or more) doing limited or restricted movements that activate only single or a few muscle groups at a time and are usually not supported by the largest muscles in the body... the glutes and quads.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here....

You could take all of the "conventional" exercises in the gym.... as described above.....

And replace them with a handful of "All Body / High Range of Movement" exercises done with high intensity over a relatively short duration....

And 95% of the people would respond to those exercise better and see a marked improvement in their strength, flexibility and endurance in a relatively short period (a month or 2) of performing those movements.

What types of movements am I talking about?

For more high range of movement exercises, go to www.crossfit.com and select "Exercises and Demos".

CrossFit is not the only program that utilizes full range of  movement.  I find that my combo Pilates / Yoga classes - at Anytime Fitness known as PIYO Strength has a lot of full range of movement body weight exercises in it.

The more muscle groups you can activate at one time and the further you can move while those muscle groups are activated, the more work you will do..... it's simple physics.

And there's a reason why physics is the root word for physical fitness.

Think about it.

Then work on it.
Posted by Wills on Wheels at 7:53 PM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)