UNDERSTANDING
MUSCLES
AND THE WAY WE MOVE
Teaching clients how their muscles work in daily life will enable you to design truly effective exercise
programs that can decrease pain and improve performance.
WORDS: JUSTIN PRICE
s fitness professionals, we are
experts in muscles. Theoretically,
this knowledge should help us
design more effective exercises and keep
our clients pain-free and functioning well.
The truth, however, is that much of what we
learn about the function of muscles isn’t
going to help our clients move better.
Most textbooks on anatomy have resulted
from the study of cadavers and dissection
of bodies post mortem to see where the
muscles attach to certain parts of the body
(Gray, 1995). The resultant discoveries from
this approach to anatomy have created
the framework for the most widely held
views regarding muscle function and the
way we learn anatomy; namely, ‘Muscle A’
goes from ‘Bone 1’ to ‘Bone 2’, and when it
contracts it pulls these two bones together.
For example, a typical anatomy text might
explain that the quadriceps muscles of
the leg are responsible for extending or
A
straightening the knee (Golding &