Maxing Motion

Image courtesy of zimmer.com

Something I often fall into the trap of is having my clients move through all of their active range around a particular joint during a given exercise and magnitude profile.  I'm calling it a trap because I guess that is more or less my default right now, meaning that's kind of option A that I start with and then I might strategically choose to limit the range from there.  I guess I have an issue with this in my head because it seems to be the only thing I do it for.  I don't default to max resistance for every exercise and then scale back, nor do I think that way about speed/tempo, the duration of the set, or the effort I want put forth during the exercise.  So I think this needs to change in my head.



Most everything else I tend to drift towards moderate/easy for the first set or so then increase from there, so why with motion do I almost always start towards the most that my client can actively/comfortably attain?  Furthermore, even if I justified having them move through that much range with an easy load for the sake of warming up the tissue or practicing the motion, why do I almost always continue to have them explore that entire range once a greater resistance force is applied?  The irony is that the presented challenge in terms of resistance is usually only a challenge during a small part of the range, so how much challenge to the muscular tissue is actually being accomplished by moving through the rest of it?


I can certainly see viable reasons for moving through most of the available active range of a joint during specific exercises with specific individuals, but I'm not sure that it makes sense for me to keep seeing this as option A.  Instead, I think it is time to drop this piece that has been somewhat automatic up to this point and start to see not just the motion that is being performed, but the specific part of the motion that is performed, as a variable that needs to be strategically chosen and manipulated, as well.

Do you tend to default to moving through "full range" on your curls, squats, presses, pulls, etc, etc, etc?  Do you tend to default to maxing out on weight every rep, too?

Your body.  Your training.

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