The very most part of what I do is nutritionally based, as you will probably know if this isn’t the first time you have found yourself on my blog or my website. However, believe It or not, long before the nutrition came training, personal training and coaching – what has become apparent from my time in the health and fitness industry is that knowledge of biomechanics is key for the understanding of the way we, as humans, move, particularly for us in relation to the training that we do in the gym. This is especially important in the work that I do, as I have found my niche in ‘functional fitness’, if you like. While it may not be pivotal for the general population popping in and out of the gym to understand, having a little grasp of anatomy can be super duper helpful for injury prevention often more than anything else.
The term biomechanics relates to the way that the different components of our muscular and skeletal systems move together to create movement within our bodies – this understanding can aid you in the gym with moving safely and moving well and ultimately an elevated training performance – which can never be a bad thing, right?!
So here is a little run through of the very basics of anatomy, we can look, in future posts, about how we can perhaps relate these things to optimising our performance whether it's in running, CrossFitm triathlon or anything of the like.
Today, let’s talk about a little anatomy basics to lay the foundation for the knowledge coming in the weeks ahead. Here goes…
· To create movement our muscles must be attached to our bones by both ligaments and tendons.
· A muscle has an origin (most of the closest point that it attaches to the midline of the body) and an insertion (the other end, if you like) – the insertion is often the more mobile end of the two.
· Virtually everything that we do requires more than one muscle to move at a time, however, the muscle that is primarily responsible for a movement is known as the agonist or prime mover with the opposing muscle being the antagonist.
Are we following? Good.
· When we move, the antagonist muscle involved works to provide stabilisation, almost putting a break on the movement – a physiological response to avoid injury of the joints.
Agonists, antagonists…any more confusing words for us? Yes, actually…sorry!!
· A synergist is the name given to a muscle when it assists the agonist in the movement being produced – without them the agonist would often be ineffective. They can also provide a little control when we move.
All beginning to make a little sense – hope so! Any questions, as always, you know I’m ALWAYS happy to chat. More to follow…watch this space!
Peace and love, A x
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