EXERCISE
SELECTION BASED ON YOUR PERSONAL PHYSICAL STRUCTURE
“You are unique…….just like everyone else”
You’ve heard that phrase
before from me. But it’s always important that you remember it when it comes to
training. There are any number of exercises you can do for any given body part
or muscle group but all of them won’t work well for you. Some of them may even contribute to your
chance for injury. A lot of this has to do with your individual physical
structure.
It’s obvious that some people
are taller than others, some have larger hands, longer arms or shorter legs or
wider shoulders or bigger feet. But there are also differences that reflect
your particular habits or lifestyle. Do you sit all day at work, or spend all
day on your poor flat feet? If your job
involves physical labor, is it predominately lifting or pushing or pulling?
Be careful of taking advice
from untrained individuals on what exercises work best and how you should do
those exercises. What works for them may
not work for you or may even cause you injury. Often, the exercise may work
fine for you with just a minor tweak or two…a change in foot or hand position,
a different grip, dumb bells instead of a barbell (or vice versa).
Let’s look a few scenarios:
Your friend is much shorter than you with shorter arms
and is more “barrel chested”. All other variables are equal (age, weight,
experience, training time, and grip).
Who is going to have the
better bench press? Hint: it’s not likely you! Your friend is going to have a
shorter range of motion. His arms are shorter and his chest is closer to the
top of his range of motion.
Your longer arms and less
rounded rib cage not only mean you must move the weight farther, your longer
forearms puts your elbows below the level of the bench and gives the elbow a
tendency to flair our away from your sides. Both of which puts much more stress
on your shoulder complex. It also stretches the pectoral muscle and its tendon
attachment to the upper arm to extreme ranges of motion.
What’s the fix? A closer grip
will shorten the range of motion as will keeping the elbows closer to the
bench. Unless you are in an official competitive meet you can also shorten the
range of motion by not taking the lift to lock-out (don’t push the weight all
the way up to fully extend you elbow) and/or lower all the way to the chest.
Genetic Differences.
Other differences exist
between individuals. Some are genetic and some are caused by lifestyle. Genetic
differences are more difficult to fix.
Lack of sufficient hip mobility,
for example, is usually caused by lifestyle. But many cases of insufficient hip
mobility can be genetic. The structure of the hip joint can vary substantially
between individuals. And this can be true of almost every joint. An
individual’s hip structure can make it difficult to do certain exercises.
Squats, for example. But there are
almost always alternatives to every movement. Using squats as an example there
are: box squats, hack squats, goblet squats, front squats and others.
You have a desk job and spend most of your time seated
behind a computer screen.
The odds are very high that
you body had adapted to your occupational restrictions and your shoulders (and
several other muscle groups) are no longer in the optimum position. Your
shoulders likely have shifted well forward of where they should be. (Translation;
your posture sucks) All this causes weaknesses in portions of your shoulder’s
muscle structure and the improper alignment of the bony structures.
Do you think you should do
the same exercises as your friend who pulls
heavy loads all day at work?
The fix? Start doing twice as
many pulling exercises as pushing exercises until your shoulders and posture
are improved. And find pushing exercises or variations that don’t cause pain.
While we’re on the subject of
sitting your entire working life, do you remember when you were a toddler and
could squat ATG? (Ass to grass). Do you think age has anything to do with the
fact you can’t even get your thighs parallel to the ground now? Age probably
has little to do with it.
Look at a National Geographic
Magazine and see how many old people you can find still squatting the same way
you did as a toddler. They can still squat that way because they don’t have
office chairs or dinner chairs or easy chairs or double cheeseburgers with
extra large fries and a large chocolate shake!
You’ve been lifting now for a while and your chest has
been growing steadily. Suddenly, you’re having shoulder pain.
Your chest has gotten
stronger but you’ve neglected your back. (You can’t see it in the mirror so
it’s not as important. Right?)
You have an imbalance. Your
chest muscles (Pectorals) have pulled your shoulder forward of where they
should be. Leading to poor posture and the same type of injury as sitting in
that office chair all day. And guess what. The fix is the same.
These are just a few examples and the
fixes are greatly oversimplified. There are often many ways to skin the same
cat.
The point of all this is:
1.
Find what needs
fixing and fix it (posture, imbalance)
2.
Experiment with
different exercises for each muscle group. “No Pain-No Gain” is bunk. If it
hurts, find a better exercise or a better set up or a better variation
3.
Don’t wait until
you have an injury or pain that limits your progress to find the best program
that works for you.
For dozens of variations on different exercises go to http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/ and find what works best for you or contact me by commenting below or email.
SEND YOUR COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS TO alphaedgefitness@gmail.com
If I don’t have an answer I’ll try to find
someone who does.
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