Monday, March 5, 2007

Muscle Basics: The Secret of The Total Muscle

So, you walk into your gym and you have one of 2 basic choices. Do I build strength with weights or work my cardiovascular system and do aerobics? And yes, you can do both. Even if you do both, you’re still missing something important. The Total Muscle.

There are 3 basic functions that a muscle must perform in order to be complete & functional:

1) Strength
2) Power &
3) Aerobic

All 3 components together give you the ability perform your basic everyday tasks. From lifting your children, to running up a hill, you need all 3 components of a muscle to have them function as they were designed. You see, in order to lift an object, and break through that initial inertia, you must conjure up some power. Once you’ve lifted it, you just need to have good strength to support the weight. Then, if you want to be able to do anything useful with this object for any given period of time, you need to train that muscle aerobically so that you can do it over time.

When I work with patients on rehab, 1-set of exercise typically consists of 10-reps of strength, 10-reps of power & 10-reps of aerobics. Aerobics as it pertains to this type of rehab is simply a much faster set of repetitions; fast flicks is how I describe them. I will start a patient with strength reps consisting of an equally slow positive and negative rep. Usually 1 or 2 seconds up, 1 or 2 seconds down. The power rep is an explosive rep on the positive (aka: concentric contraction) and a very slow negative (aka: eccentric contraction). Similar to what is known as plyo-metrics. The final set of repetitions are the aerobic reps. The aerobic reps are typically fast flicks done at the end of the power reps. When the patient finishes their 10th power rep, they go right into the 10 fast aerobic “flicks” and if they don't feel it already, this usually brings out that oh-so-wonderful burn.

If you want to really build a total muscle, you must include components of strength, power and aerobics to really complete the job. In rehabilitation and performance enhancement training, you must also factor in proprioception. Which is an important topic itself and I’ll address that in a future post.

So yes, there is more to exercise that building those “show” muscles and running on the treadmill. You must build the complete package; and by including strength, power and aerobic components to your weight training you will enhance not only your workouts but your life too.

For all you Equinox Fitness members, try the group power classes. You'll get the “Total Muscle” you are looking for. For those dedicated fans of MG Fitness & The Saturday Morning Bootcamp, they are 1st-class trainers who have you covered all over, inside and out. After all, who else do you know who runs the Chicago Marathon 5-months pregnant and stops along the way to help others complete the race?

Healthfully yours

DocT
Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.


For More Information on Dr. Narson, please visit: www.DrNarson.com

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