- Sep 10, 2013
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shin angle.
So why is it better to visualize movement in terms of the skeleton as opposed to the muscles?
Bones can transfer compressive or pushing forces from one part of the body to the other.
Bones are better than soft tissues for accurately and efficiently transferring pushing forces...
Of course, the bones will only effectively communicate forces through the body if they are well aligned. Let’s say you want to transfer force from your legs to your hand. There is a certain angle that the femur must push into the pelvis that will cause the pelvis to push into the spine. Similarly, the spine needs to be angled properly to push the shoulder to its target.
Imagine flexing at the ankles to lean your weight into a straight arm to push open a heavy door. If the boney alignment is correct, the door will open with very little muscular effort, because the skeleton will transfer forces from the feet all the way to the door. The action will be perceived as smooth and effortless. By contrast, if you do not lean forward, and bend your elbow while pushing, the potential forces generated from the body weight and pelvis are lost, and you must use a significant muscular force in the triceps and/or pectorals to open the door. The action will be perceived as strained and awkward.
From these examples we can see that the alignment of the skeleton determines how much muscular force is necessary to perform a certain action. Therefore, an optimally aligned skeleton is essential for efficient movement.
visualizing the position and orientation of the bones as you move will assist in proper skeletal alignment, which will assist in movement efficiency and health. By contrast, focusing attention on the contraction of certain muscles while moving will tend to put you in the mind of creating excess muscular effort to move, which is contrary to the goal of increasing efficiency. In efficient movement, the sense of effort tends to disappear, even when the forces generated are high.
Muscular visualization is even more problematic in the context of movement, because the complexity of muscular action during any movement is mind boggling. For example, what is the first muscle to fire when the arm is lifted straight in front on the body? The deltoid? One of the rotator cuff muscles? No, it’s the soleus, located in the calf! The soleus needs to fire to prevent you from falling forward when the arm unbalances the body by moving out in front of the center of gravity. The point here is that muscular contractions are so fabulously complex and often counterintuitive, that hoping to visualize or understand movement in these terms is hopelessly confusing.
After a few reps paying attention to the movement of the bones, see whether the action feels smoother, more clear and efficient than your habitual way. Feel any better? When did your glutes fire? Who cares? As long as you took your bones where they were supposed to go in a smooth motion, the glutes did what they were supposed to do.
this is the operative trait to fixate upon.