www . newellstrength . com www . unlockingyourinnerstrength . com That was me putting on the breaks , I am getting ahead of myself again .
We have two different types of muscle groups . And yes , we do have over 600 muscles in the body but to focus on all of the would be silly . Let ’ s focus on the big global muscles , the ‘ bang for your buck ’ muscles .
Tonic muscles are the ones that get tighter as get tired or age . Phasic muscles are those that tend to weaken under stress or age . So bad things happen when we are tired , stressed or not aging gracefully .
The tonic muscles include the upper back , your pecs ( chest ), biceps , the hip flexors and piriformis , hamstrings and calf muscles . I want you to think for a minute of how you sit when you are at work . If you are similar to the masses , you sit with a rounded back , leaning forward . This only exacerbates the issue of the tonic muscles getting tighter .
The phasic muscles include the rhomboids , mid-back , triceps , gluteus maximus ( that never gets old saying that !), deep abs , external obliques and deltoids ( shoulders ). These muscles are for the most part on the back side of the body or aren ’ t readily visible .
Most men head to the gym , if at all , and train the tonic muscles , well , because that ’ s what the magazines have shown you to do or better yet , Jimmy the personal trainer thought what you really needed were bigger biceps and a better set of pecs . Again , this training the tonic muscles exclusively will only speed up the shortening process of them as we age . What would be the logical thing to do with tight muscles ? Oh yes , stretch and move them through a range of motion ! Back to that in a minute .
The phasic muscles are those that ’ ll be the first to have gravity destroy them , meaning they will get saggy and droopy first . These are areas that are can put a lot of muscle on and that ’ ll keep us young and full of vitality . I have always had our athletes train the heck out of these areas because most of the athletes need to gain muscle and gain it fast .
And if you have fallen into the trap of thinking that the bench press is king for a man , here is some good news for you . By training the mid-back , delts and triceps , your bench will continue to get stronger and stronger in your bench press ( the bench isn ’ t done correctly by 99.9 % of the people to develop the and train the chest ).
So , what to do ?
Without addressing nutrition here since I have covered that in multiple other places , let ’ s talk training . I am sure that you don ’ t have hour upon free hour to train . With that in mind , we need to think efficiency . The first that I ’ d advise you to do is to stretch the tonic muscles .
Specifically , I ’ d have you stretch the pecs , biceps and hip flexors and roll out the hamstrings , piriformis ( a deep muscle of the glute region ) and calves . This is more effective for those areas that performing