Follow and Like Yogilates
YOGILATES
  • Home
  • *SHOP*
  • Jonathan Urla
    • Learn More About Yogilates
    • Testimonials
    • Photo Gallery
  • Classes / Events
    • Group
    • Events / Workshops
    • Private
  • Press
  • Video Clips
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • FAQs
http://www.yogilates.com/blog

Big Muscle Mystery - how does it happen?

4/11/2010

3 Comments

 
Picture
You may have seen the person walking around with huge calve muscles or with large trapezius muscles on the shoulders. Or how about the middle age person on the bus with the extra huge hip muscles. You might assume (wrongly) that they overdeveloped the area by lifting heavy things at some time in their life. The reality is that even with huge muscles, they may not be any stronger than someone with normal size muscles. The weird thing about hypertrophy (the process of muscle cells getting bigger) is that it can happen just from overuse and not necessarily from resistance training. In fact, it is actually really hard to significantly increase muscle size just from lifting weights once in a while. A recent article in the New York Times Science section this week pretty much validates what I have been telling women for years, which is, that lifting heavier weights will help them to tone their muscles and trim their bodies, not build them.
After we reach adulthood, the size of our muscles is largely determined by our everyday activity. Generally, people become less active as they get older and muscles will atrophy (get smaller) from this disuse. If you remain active, then muscle size and strength will remain as you age. If you stress the muscles regularly through exercise, then they will increase in density as they become stronger. However, only if you stress them intensely, and eat lots of protein, will your muscles grow in size. This is what bodybuilders try to do. It is very hard to actually gain weight from just lifting weights however, because as your muscle fitness improves, your metabolism increases. This means you will burn more calories even at rest. So, someone who lifts weights as part of their exercise routine will burn more fat than someone who doesn’t and will get leaner. That is why the women in the study who used heavier weights actually lost weight compared to the women who did lighter weights for more repetitions. Which is not to say that lifting light weights doesn’t have any benefit. Everyone should start with light weights to establish good form first before progressing to heavier weights. In addition, certain benefits and purposes are only achieved when the weight is light enough to allow the deeper intrinsic muscles to work properly. This is especially true for many Pilates exercises and also in general for circular and rotational movements. Most, if not all, people who only lift heavy weights for strength exercise are lacking in functional strength because of the neglect of the intrinsic muscles.

Getting back to the mystery of people who have large muscles, but not from lifting weights; the root cause is poor posture and inefficient movement. Let’s look at large trapezius muscles, which are the muscles on top of the shoulders going up the base of the neck from the back. These get overdeveloped when someone habitually lifts objects by first pulling up the shoulder. This habit becomes unconscious and even when lifting a pencil, the muscle firing sequence begins with the trapezius so that even when the weight is minimal, the muscle still gets contracted. Over time, the subject may even try to lift their body weight with the trapezius, e.g. when moving from sitting to standing, or when straightening up from a forward bend. The muscular imbalance is perpetuated by inefficient movement, excessive tension in the area, and is often combined with forward head posture and rounded shoulders. Learning to isolate and articulate the shoulders, and learning to release unnecessary tension through breathwork and stretching, are key to training the subject to bring more balance to this area of the body.

Another common area of overdevelopment of muscles is in the hip, primarily the medial gluteals, which are higher than the gluteus maximus and more toward the sides of the hips. The primary cause of this problem is a forward leaning posture usually stemming from an anterior tilted pelvis, and sometimes coupled with weak quadriceps. Leaning forward even a few degrees will shift weight bearing from the legs to the gluteals. Every time the subject stands or walks, they are holding the weight of their upper torso with the gluteals. This repetitive stress on the muscles will build them up, though without adding more strength. In fact, the strength of muscles held in constant tension is usually less than a normal muscle. For this person, corrective postural exercises for the pelvis, along with stretching and core work will hopefully bring down the hypertrophied area and lead to more efficient movement.

I hope this article was helpful and made you think a little. Please post your comments or thoughts.


3 Comments
mia link
2/14/2015 06:32:23 am

I have overdevelopped my upper back musclex especially traos and lats. Provably was shrugging while liftin. It really looks horrible on my small frame but the bigger concern for me is that ruins my posture. I have rounded shoulders now, look like a guy up anf when i try to walk streight it hurts in that part a lot. Is there any way i can decrease the muscle or should i hust lay down and wait the atrophy? But it is not happening even though i dont lift anymore. I bulge ieven with streching that area

Reply
Sacrilegio Celestial link
11/19/2023 08:36:12 am

Lovvely blog you have

Reply
Jewish Singles Columbia link
10/31/2024 01:44:56 pm

Grreat reading this

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Jonathan Urla

    MFA, Certified Pilates Instructor and ACE Certified Medical Exercise Specialist, Dancer/Choreographer, Triathlete, Veteran Yoga Practitioner. Also educated in economics and environmental science

    Archives

    March 2016
    December 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    November 2014
    December 2013
    March 2013
    March 2012
    September 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    October 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    March 2009

    Categories

    All
    Abdominal Exercises
    Active Stretches
    Agility
    Aging
    Alexander Technique
    Awareness
    Back Problems
    Bad Posture
    Balance Training
    Ballet
    Barre Class
    Bartinieff
    Best Way To Lose Weight
    Body Building
    Brain
    Breathing
    Calisthenics
    Carbohydrate
    Carbohydrate Restriction
    Caveat
    Cayenne
    Closed-chain Exercise
    Commercial
    Compound Movement
    Conscious Breathing
    Core
    Corrective Exercise
    Cross-Training
    Diets
    Discipline
    Eckhart Tolle
    Electrical Signals
    Exercise For Lower Back
    Exercises
    Fat Loss
    Feldenkrais
    Fitness Enthusiasts
    Flat Stomach
    Full Cycles
    Functional Exercise
    Gluteal Muscles
    Goya
    Grape Nuts
    High Intensity Exercise
    Hypertension
    Injury Prevention
    Instincts
    Interval Training
    Intuitive Learning
    Isolation Exercises
    Jonathan Urla
    Leg Joint Issues
    Lifestyles
    Lifestyle Solutions
    Livestrong.com
    Lower Back
    Lunges
    Matwork
    Meditation
    Metabolism
    Mind/Body Exercise
    Mobility
    Multi-dimensional Approach
    Muscle Hypertrophy
    Muscular Imbalance
    New York Times
    Nutrition
    Nyt
    Open-chain Exercise
    Pilates
    Pilates Business
    Pilates Instructor
    Pilates Training
    Pilates Yoga
    Posture
    Program
    Progresso
    Proprioception
    Resolutions
    Results
    Running
    Salt Substitutes
    Self-Confidence
    Sensory Cueing
    Side Kicks
    Skill Learning
    Sodium Intake
    Solutions
    Somatic Exercise
    Squats
    Stability And Balance
    Standing Leg Exercises
    Starbucks
    Stretching
    Teaching
    Toning
    Tracy Anderson
    Transverse Abdominals
    Twyla Tharp
    Usda
    Warm-up Sketches
    Water Retention
    Weight Loss
    Weight Watchers
    Yoga
    Yogilates

    RSS Feed

Imagen
Follow & Like us on Social Media
Copyright © 2005 - 2013 Yogilates Integrative Fitness
Yogilates® is a registered tradmark belonging to Jonathan Urla and may not be used without express permission.
For trademark details, please see FAQ.