To simplify exercise and muscle building you need to understand two things. The array of muscle fibers and how to properly engage them. The more efficiently you can do so the more muscle you can build.
- If you can understand what muscles are required and recruited to control a movement of the body you can then retroactively train those muscles by doing that said movement.
- If you also keep in mind the idea, the aspect of muscle fibers and their alignment with the human body you can train in order to recruit the maximum amount of muscle fibers. By training movements that work in parallel, or in the same direction as the muscle fibers run then you will actively recruit those muscle fibers and grow more muscle.
Too many exercises to pick from
Working out can quickly become complicated and convoluted, especially if you’re a beginner or a newbie to the whole hobby itself. Whenever you start workout there are many different things to consider. These would be the different aspects of working out and fitness in general. By this I mean things such as nutrition, recovery, and the actual training itself. Many times people overlook exactly how important any one of these specific details is in the entire equation, particularly the aspect of recovery. If you work out rigorously and train your muscles but you never rest and you never recover you will not see the proper results of your hard work and effort. In the same way, many people will not account for nutrition as much as they should. Nutrition is a huge component of recovery itself. If you’re not eating the right food or if you don’t eat enough food or if you eat too much food depending on your goal and you will not reach whatever goal you have set for yourself. This could be simple as you want to lose weight but you are overeating food. This means that you will not lose weight. or the adverse, if you want to gain weight but you are not eating enough food you will not gain weight. Now to get to the real heart of the matter at which I am discussing today. This matter I speak of is the matter of overcomplicated training.
Simplify exercise by understanding the purpose of movement
- Break exercise down to it's basic components
- Easily train muscles by understanding what the purpose of each muscle is
- Understanding how the body moves is to know how the muscles work and how to train those muscles
As I mentioned prior training can become one of the most complicated if not the most complicated aspects of working out in fitness. If you just started working out and going to the gym there is an astounding amount of different exercises you can do. There are possibly hundreds of different machines and let alone the different cable exercises and let alone free weight movements as well. With all of these different exercises added up there are hundreds upon hundreds of different exercises that you can do. This can become very confusing and overwhelming to just about anybody, let alone a beginner. Someone who is just started working out. So, the real question of today is how can we simplify that process. How can you simplify the workout itself so that you understand fundamentally what the goal of each exercise is and how to break it down into its key component? The most important components of all to understand about exercise and about muscles themselves. By using this key component you can easily understand what exercises you should do to target the desired muscle. By doing this you can quickly understand exactly how to eliminate all these excess movements that you don’t need to do in order to reach your goals and properly train whatever muscles you desire.
Step Number Two: Muscle Fibers
The single most important aspect of understanding exercise would be the understanding of how the body moves. Understanding how the body moves is to know how the muscles work and how to train those muscles. The muscles in the human body serve one main purpose, to move the human body. If you can understand what movements require which muscles to undergo those movements then you can understand retroactively which movements you need to train said muscles involved in that movement. You don’t need to be a doctor, kinesiologist, or fitness trainer to know how the human body works and how you move. By understanding one simple thing you can understand the essence of human musculature.
Another key aspect that I keep referencing over and over again is the existence and function of muscle fibers. If you break down any given muscle in the body into its simplest form you will soon realize the existence of these fibers. Each muscle in the body is composed of these many thousands of muscle fibers. Typically the muscle fibers of each muscle run in the same direction and remain parallel for its entirety. Muscle fibers’ purpose is to contract. That is how they are able to move different parts of the body. The easiest and most clear example of muscle contraction and muscle fiber usage is in the bicep. If you would imagine with me for just a moment the human bicep.
- Muscles are made up of muscle fibers
- The more muscle fibers you can traget in a specific muscle the more muscle you can build
- All the muscle fibers of a particular muscle run in the same direction. If with exercises that are on the same plane and parallel with these fibers, we can target those fibers most effectively
When we say the word bicep we are referring to the cluster of muscles on the top of the arm directly below the shoulder muscle and directly above the elbow. The main job and purpose of the bicep is to contract and lift the elbow and bend the arm up. So, by understanding this we can understand how to train the muscle that accomplishes that task. By understanding that those muscles are responsible for that motion we then can retroactively know that we can train that bending motion to train the bicep. As I mentioned this is the most clear and obvious example of how to train a muscle properly but I’m using it to illustrate a grander image. Additionally, inside the bicep, as I mentioned there are muscle fibers. These fibers run along in the same direction as the arm itself. If you train with the intent of moving in the same direction as the muscle fibers align themselves and you’ll be recruiting those muscle fibers. Adding this extra little step and understanding the muscle will help you know how to train the muscle most efficiently. Not only by understanding how to move the body in a particular way that engages the muscle but also understand how the muscle fibers align themselves. By simply looking at a few anatomic images you can understand how the muscle fibers align themselves and how to train those muscle fibers. By moving in a direction that aligns with the muscle fibers in parallel you then can Target those muscle fibers most efficiently.
So, to put it succinctly there are two main things to keep in mind to eliminate confusion of exercise…
- If you can understand what muscles are required and recruited to control a movement of the body you can then retroactively train those muscles by doing that said movement.
- If you also keep in mind the idea, the aspect of muscle fibers and their alignment with the human body you can train in order to recruit the maximum amount of muscle fibers. By training movements that work in parallel, or in the same direction as the muscle fibers run then you will actively recruit those muscle fibers and grow more muscle.