Defined Fitness Tip For Results 16: Build Go Muscles Not Strong Muscles

For the past 30 years we have been training the same way. Our fitness programs have been highly influenced by equipment manufactures, which designed machines to isolate muscles one at a time. However, as great as this maybe be for developing the “show muscles” of a bodybuilder they do not help us function very well in sports or everyday life.

A brief look back at the history of fitness will show that the overall fitness of the average person, quickly declined at about the time when weight machines began replacing free weights and total body lifts were replaced by isolation lifts.

Unless you are a bodybuilder there is little benefit to isolating muscles. Instead, by changing the focus to building “go muscles” you will increase overall strength, which means gains in athleticism and performance of daily activities.

“Go Muscles” are built through total body exercises that involve pushing, pulling, and carrying weight that challenges the body and stimulates the metabolism, leading to leaner more toned body. These exercise are first built off of the ability to lift and control your own bodyweight before adding any additional weight. Exercises can be as simple as a squat with your own bodyweight or a set of push-ups, or as complex as a farmer’s walk with an unbalanced load or a barbell power clean.

So why is a 40-year-old mother of four children doing seated chest presses and bicep curls? When all she wants to do is lose ten pounds and have more energy. She is never going to compete in a bodybuilding contest and spends eight hours each day sitting at a desk in front of a computer. As a result, she has developed postural imbalances in the shoulders and hips due to prolonged sitting. So why is she sitting on a machine in the same position that she spends most of her day when she exercises?

Instead, she needs to get up and on her feet, picking weight up from the floor and pulling weight toward herself, with exercises like kettle bell swings and TRX rows that will help to improve her posture by strengthening the muscles that are weak in her body from sitting all day.

They way fitness is being done is changing and the focus is becoming more and more on developing functional training, i.e. “go muscles”, so change up your regular routine and take a functional training class at your local gym. Then begin incorporating those exercises into your everyday routine, if you haven’t done so already.

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