Activating your muscles is about preparing your body for exercise and using each movement safely. Here’s what it is advisable to know.
What does it mean to activate muscles?
Activating your muscles is about “awakening” your muscles, says Ellen Thompson, chief personal trainer at Blink Fitness. There are several things happening here. First, your brain tells these muscles to listen: they are going from rest to motion. Muscle activity then sends the resources needed by the body to perform that movement. Namely, increased blood and oxygen flow, says Thompson.
Think about doing a weighted squat. If you’re taking the load of the barbell in your shoulders and your lower body is not ready for it, chances are you’ll buckle under the load. But when you squeeze – or activate – your core and lower body, you may have the ability to handle that weight by lowering yourself and lifting back up using your muscular strength.
Activating warm-up exercises also mimic the movement pattern of your muscles and joints for whatever you are about to do, but in a less intense way than full exercise, so your body is primed to do the identical activity again under tougher conditions.
“Warm-ups that activate your muscles can assist prevent injury in addition to improve endurance,” says Thompson. “By activating specific muscles, you’ll be able to improve your range of motion and adaptability, which can assist with overall quality of movement.”
Why is muscle activation vital?
Activating your muscles is the difference between catching if you expected the ball to be thrown your way and attempting to catch the ball when it’s flying in your face. If your muscles are activated (prepared), they know work is coming, so you’ll be able to squat, lift, or lunge deep, hard, with control, and without exposing your body to sudden, sudden movements. Not activating your muscles can leave you struggling to “catch the ball”, putting you susceptible to injury, or not using the muscles you truly intend to work within the movement.
“Not doing muscle activation warming up can result in an increased risk of injury and reduce the general effect of your workout,” says Thompson.
How to activate your muscles
During the muscle-activating warm-up, practice the move you propose to perform under tension, with only your body weight, or with lower than a full load. Or deal with gently engaging the muscles you already know you may be working. For example, although you most likely don’t run with weights, an activation warm-up before a run might include lunges to “activate” the foremost muscles in your legs and glutes.
When you are in the course of a workout, the trainer’s tip to “activate” your muscles is absolutely a mind game. “This normally means we wish you to consciously tense or engage a selected muscle to extend its activity,” says Thompson. “What I find best for my clients is occupied with sending energy to the muscles and contracting them. For example, when you’re attempting to activate your glutes during a squat, you’ll be able to deal with squeezing your glutes at the highest of the movement.
Thompson says when you’re undecided you are activating your muscles, you most likely aren’t. But you too can touch a muscle to see if it’s hard and busy, and even have a look at your muscles within the mirror.
“You can tell when you’re activating a muscle by feeling the stress or contraction,” says Thompson. “You may also watch muscle definition or movement in a goal muscle group.”
