These days, it’s not uncommon to attend a Fitness Conference or be at a gym and hear Fitness professionals saying something to the effect off…
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- You glutes are not firing or, Your glutes are off!
- Your Transverse Abdominis (TvA) is turned off
- Your (fill in the blank)__________ muscle is not activating
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I’m sorry to say but statements like the ones above in most cases are inaccurate and flat out wrong!
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Throughout our daily living/working activities, we tend to spends lots of time sitting, slouching and not doing much athletic activity.
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In these cases, certain important muscles such as your glutes, scapular stabilizers and abdominals tend to down regulate their level of activation below optimal levels needs for safe, efficient and healthy movement.
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Over-time, this can lead to problems such as poor posture, sub-optimal athletic performance and drastically increase risk of injury.
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Also, it can drastically hinder your performance in the gym if nothing is done during the transition stage from normal activity to athletic/gym based activity. This transition stage is your Warm Up!
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Muscle activation exercises help to quickly restore muscles to optimal levels of activation by utilizing exercises that cause your CNS to up-regulate them.
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There are only 3 reasons for a muscle to actually be turned off:
1. Paralysis
2. Deinnervation
3. Death
. Now, if you work with dead clients -you have the most boring job in the world and you’ll never get paid! The other two reasons require a qualified Therapist, not a FItness Professional! .The TRUTH is -
- If you can walk, your glutes are on!
- If you can breath, your TvA is on!
. Now, lets get one thing crystal clear – Just because a muscle is active, doesn’t mean it’s level of activation is optimal! . This is why I use Muscle Activation exercises as a regular part of my Warm Ups… and you should too! . Throughout our daily living/working activities, we tend to spends lots of time sitting, slouching and not doing much athletic activity.
.
In these cases, certain important muscles such as your glutes, scapular stabilizers and abdominals tend to down regulate their level of activation below optimal levels needs for safe, efficient and healthy movement.
.
Over-time, this can lead to problems such as poor posture, sub-optimal athletic performance and drastically increase risk of injury.
.
Also, it can drastically hinder your performance in the gym if nothing is done during the transition stage from normal activity to athletic/gym based activity. This transition stage is your Warm Up!
.
Muscle activation exercises help to quickly restore muscles to optimal levels of activation by utilizing exercises that cause your CNS to up-regulate them.
.
Amen brother! Great points.
There is a similar attitude in the bodywork world: A muscle is either relaxed or contracting. I speak in terms of tonus, or amount of tension. As you say of activation, under normal circumstances there is always some amount of tonus, and relaxing a muscle means decreasing tonus, not “turning it off”.
I think there is one other reason to add to your list though: anesthesia.
This down regulation is more often a result of the muscle being longer or shorter than it’s optimal length. If the length tension relationship isn’t optimal, the force production of that muscle will be diminished. Restore the ideal length and achieving stronger activation will be much easier. I think many say a muscle is “turned off” when, more often than not, it is in a lengthened position, but sometimes it may be short and weak as well. Adjusting the bodypart (usually manually by a trainer/therapist) to reduce the length of the muscle (if it’s long)and then asking for a contraction in the more shortened position will often result in a stronger contraction.