Foundations
Laying the foundations is essential in building your house and building your body. Where most people go wrong is starting at ‘the end result’. Just like building a house you have to be methodical in your approach and have to start right at the beginning.
Training the foundations, in this case relates to working ‘tonic muscle fibres’, which are also known as ‘slow twitch fibres’. These are deeper muscles that lie beneath those’ sexy’ muscles, but play a crucial role in muscle synergy and exercise patterning. These are often neglected by inexperienced resistance trainers, as most people are in a rush to have the body they desire fast.This is fine but, “do you rush your foundations to get your walls up when building a house?” If you did what sort of house will you build? You get the picture. It is important to remember that developing your foundations is critical in preventing injury, moving better and functioning, in order to progress to more advanced exercise like squatting and lunging to tone up your bottom.
The ‘Inner Unit’ (your core) can be thought of as the musculature stabilizing and protecting your internal architecture, but also is the bridge to controlling breathing and as a result your autonomic nervous system. This is a great place to start with developing your foundation as the correct firing of the Inner Unit and its effective recruitment, impacts not only your spinal stabilization, so that your prime movers can get the job done, but they impact your ability to breathe and coordinate smooth movement.
Exercises vary on the individual but a well rounded program will have exercises to prime you for the following events and warm up the entire body, through activating the right musculature and recognizing correct movement behaviours. Next time you warm up, skip the exercise bike and try an interval circuit with the following. Try to perform each exercise slowly and controlled for one minute and repeat two times.
- Scapula musculature activation. Such as ‘lying arm retraction and depression’, also known as a prone w.
- Hip extension sequencing- ‘prone glut. activation’
- Core control- marching, side clams, bridging and hovers.
- Add in a side hover, side plank or side lying hip lift to activate musculature through the lateral sling. (obligues and hip adductors)
- knee musculature activation- Try a standing ‘ 2 inch lunge’. The idea is to turn on the Vastus Medialis Oblique andensure the knee is tracking correctly. You should feel the muscle on inside of the knee turn on first.
To summarize the ‘foundation process’
Like building a house!
- Solid Earth
- Solid Foundations
- Solid Walls
- Smooth Swinging Door
Guys, are you starting to get the idea? Muscle building takes time and there is no quick fix. You don’t want muscle that you cannot use because you have lost function (perhaps injury) do you? These methods will have you training correctly, moving well, decrease the likelihood of injury and allow you to work with the weight needed in the months to come, to grow REAL muscle! This is 2011 and this is what we have learned over the past 30 years, so train with the education of today!
