The Muscular System

oooo ahhh muscles! Body World! Movement, Exercise, Lifting heavy sh$$. So like I said I'd post something about the 'muscle system' since that is what we discussed in class this week. Lucky for me I have an awesome dad and awesome résumé and took AP Bio and independent study kinesiology in HS, so a lot of it is review. But, it’s always good to remember or review the muscles of the body etc.
I obviously do not think that we need to call the 'quads' the 'rectus femoris' or anything like that. But, we should still as coaches or trainers know the 'scientific' name for a muscle. Sometimes you do get those extra curious athletes or clients and they might ask more specifically what 'muscle' does this exercise/lift ‘work’. Usually an exercise works more than one muscle, or even better works every muscle. But, better be safe than sorry to know the answer to a curious minds question.
It's hard to say which is the coolest organ of the human body, but at times I like to think the muscles are. That is probably my bias opinion though, if I knew more about the heart / lunges I'd probably pick them. Anywho, it still amazes me how awesome one's muscles can be. And how we can train in certain ways to make our muscles look/feel/work in different ways. We have fast and slow twitch muscles and if we train in a certain way, over time, we can gain more of either type.
It is easy to say that "the quads extend the leg and the hamstrings flex the leg". But, that sounds pretty elementary to me. Unfortunatly I know there are a lot of people out there in the fitness world that are sticking to just that, 'the basics'. Which is understanding because we certainly do not want to go on a tangent in front of our clients dropping all of these scientific names / terms etc.
However, I do think at times that as 'fitness enthusiast' or 'experts' or 'professional' we do tend to neglect the beautiful and wonderful muscular sytem. I think that we should be sure to know and understand the muscular system down to the core, and not just keep simplifying it either because we are lazy, or simply do not know more than the 'basic' aspects.

Keep your muscular system working,

Coach KIK