To maximize your exercise while minimizing the risk of pain and injury, it is important to understand a few basic movement principles of the body. What follows is not nearly exhaustive, but it will give you a sense of some foundational ideas.
Three Components Of Human Movement
The Lever And Pulley System
One way to think of the body is as a lever and pulley system. Your bones are levers, your joints are pulleys, and the tendons of your muscles are cables. When the cables (tendons) get pulled it causes the levers (bones) to move and the pulleys (joints) to turn.
The Motor
Any cable and pulley systems needs something providing power. In mechanical systems it’s often a motor. In the body it’s your muscles.
The Operator
Finally, the system needs an operator. In the human body that’s the brain, which is like a computer running all the programs necessary for you to move.
When Things Go Awry – Injury and Movement Dysfunction
How things can break down in the body’s lever and pulley system is a little more complicated. Here are some main principles:
When The Levers, Pulleys, Or Ropes Don’t Align
When parts of this system don’t line up properly you get problems like friction, bad leverage, and weak points – imagine a cable trying to slide through a bent pulley. In the case of your joints, this situation can both lead to injury as well as reduce your strength.
When The Operator Gets A Glitch
The brain can sometimes lose a program it needs to run a movement. Squatting is a great example. The western practice of sitting in chairs removes squatting from our lives and over time, the squat pattern is lost. The brain simply doesn’t know how to do it anymore. Similarly, injury or neurological disorders can disrupt the communication between the brain and the rest of the body, impairing movement.
When The Motor(s) Run Poorly
When muscles become weak, they are unable to effectively power the cables and pulleys of the body. Furthermore, muscles always work in groups to get things done. If any one of the necessary muscles is weak, it can throw the effectiveness of the entire group off. This is one of the reasons that training large, full body movements is important for overall health. Muscles need to be strong but they also need to work well together – training them in isolation might make them stronger, but that might not help them function perfectly in the group.
What It Means For Your Fitness – Some Practical Take-Aways
Poor Form Can Lead To Injuries And To Weaknesses
Poor form causes undue stresses which can cause pain and injury. It can also make it harder for the muscles to do their job by screwing up their line of pull or the neurological program that runs them, both of which will weaken the system.
Poor Form Can Be Caused By Weakness And Injuries
Since the muscles of the body are working in groups to drive the lever and pulley system, weakness of the muscles can be the cause of poor form. A weak muscle in the group might lead to an instability or cause another muscle to perform an action it isn’t meant to be doing, either of which can throw the form off.
Form Is The Exercise
These last two points are very key so it bears repeating: poor form can both cause an injury or weakness to happen, or poor form can be the result of an injury or weakness. Since poor form can be caused by or lead to weakness, it is always important to have good form. Full body movements like squats, deadlifts, push ups, chin ups, and others can show you how well your body is functioning through your ability, or lack of ability, to maintain proper form. Basically, if your form is off, you are training below your optimum, period.
Conclusion
An understanding of basic movement principles will help you boost your results in exercise. Firstly, it will reduce the risk of injury which will keep you active, without interruption, for longer. Secondly, it will help you maximize your training by ensuring that you are efficiently tapping into the full potential of your body. Familiarize yourself with proper form and technique and to always strive to improve it – this pursuit will improve your health without fail.