Length by Strength

Our muscles interact like pulleys balancing a fulcrum. The precise location of muscle attachments, the origin and insertion, reveal the actions our muscles can perform. Applying the principles of anatomy offers a massive advantage in creating a productive plan to achieve optimal range of motion and strength. Just like the design of a ski lesson, creating an objective and evaluating the root reason that it is not being met is crucial in developing an effective training plan. Check out the video for a visual on muscle group dynamics acting on the same joints.

What causes muscles to restrict range of motion?

Muscles reveal the position that is being asked of them consistently. For example sitting at a desk for hours will likely restrict the hip flexors as a group, resulting in short and weak hip flexors, and long and weak hip extensors.

Muscles are the product of your practice. As mentioned in the video, dominating muscle groups overpower like a game of tug of war for control of the relevant joints. In my experience, a couple places this applies to skiers is with strong quads in contrast to weaker hamstrings, and strong medial rotation in contrast to weak lateral rotation of the femur.

What does static stretching do?

Static stretching essentially attempts to elongate the distance between the the origin and insertion muscle attachment points. Anchoring one attachment and pulling the other away does temporarily lengthen the muscle. However, once the muscle is released and contracts again, it will revert back to the practiced pattern. Similar to skiing, it is better to replace the undesirable habit with a new one than to simply try to remove it. Static stretching does have a place and can be quite useful if paired with the appropriate muscle activation exercises. Often, the most effective way to rebalance muscle groups is by strengthening the weak muscles.

Why can you increase length by strength? 

As the long and weak muscles contract more effectively in the new preferred pattern, they will build strength that begins to insist on more length naturally from the once overpowering muscles.

Your Turn 🙂

There are tons of great exercises out there. It's less about which exercise you pick, and more of understanding how it fits for the focus you picked it for. Plus putting it into practice in the most beneficial way.

Let's build a better understanding of how to maximize the benefit intended from our exercises together.

Volunteer one exercise that has helped your skiing and link it in the comments. Make sure to mention what your objective for the exercise is. Then we can build a relevant discussion of how the exercise is meeting the objective that you planned it for, and how it could serve you even better.