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Hey everybody. I'm Kevin Weiss from bodyperformance.net and today I'm teaming with Rip Toned Fitness Products to bring you this video on muscle actions. So what that basically means is, if you're doing any type of exercise and you're doing it for a specific reason whether it be strength or bodybuilding or general fitness, the muscle is going to work in a certain way or is required to work in a certain way. And if you're following the rules of how that muscle works, you're going to get the most benefit out of that. So what I mean by that, today we'll cover the lat muscle. Which is I think probably one of the most poorly used muscles, if that's the right way to say it. Where when people are doing different exercises for their lats whether they be pull-downs or pull-ups of different variations, rows of different variations, even deadlifts. They're not really sure, or they don't even realize that they're not sure what that muscle actually does and what they should be trying to do with it.
So, what I want to cover is when you look at the lat muscle, it's a very big muscle a fan shaped muscle. And in the diagram you may have to see where the origin is, which is up underneath your armpit, and then your insertions are all kind of along right along the spine. So we're using the lat muscle as an example now, but this goes for any muscle in the body. If you're contracting it effectively what you're trying to do is bring those points closer together. Where the origin is bringing it towards the insertion and that's how the muscle contracts the most effectively. This gets missed a lot when people are trying to work their lats and what I mean by that is that they tend to shift the focus to other muscles instead of targeting the lat muscle itself.
A perfect example of that, is doing a pull-down or pull-up. So if I go from the side here. If I'm trying to focus on contracting my lat. I need to be thinking about where the insertion is under my armpit here, and I need to be trying to make that come down and around to the inside portion along my spine. If I'm only concerned with pulling down I'm... And I'll see this all the time in the gym. I'll see people they're actually rounding their upper back slightly. They're pulling their hands in really closing up this angle in their arm and they kind of end up... I'm going to exaggerate it just to show, but people will be kind of hunched over like this, crunched over as they're trying to pull down. So their pull-downs end up looking something like this.
Well, if we're thinking about how the lat muscle actually works, where it's from here to the inside of your spine or along your spine, bringing those together. This type of hunched position does nothing to do that, and it shifts the focus onto your biceps. So if you're doing pull-downs or pull-ups, the bicep is always going to have an action is always going to be involved, but you have to decide whether it's the prime mover or if it's like a secondary or a stabilizer type action that it's involved in. So if we concentrate on pulling our shoulders down and back and pulling that origin closer to the insertion, we're actually trying to slightly bring the elbow around and behind. And now if we go from the top position or a mid-position or a roll position, even a deadlift position where we're holding the bar in, if we're thinking about bringing those insertion and origin points closer together, it cannot be done if our chest is rounding over.
So in so many different exercises when the people's only focus is how much weight they're using, that's what usually ends up happening, is they're trying to use different muscles different leverages. And whether they're pulling down and ending up in this position or they're rowing and ending up in this position, maybe they're doing a bent-over row and the pulling more to their shoulder. That's not bringing this closer together. Maybe they're rotating a lot. This gives the illusion that they're bringing it close together, but because of the severe rotation, they're actually not. If they were to limit their rotation a little bit more and pull the elbow around and behind, then that muscle is going to get worked a lot more effectively. So this is just the example of the lat muscle...
So I hope this helps you guys out. And when you're working your muscles, think about where the muscle attaches and where its origin is and how to effectively bring those closer together. As long as you're able to do that, the weight will find... You'll find the weight that's right for that exercise on your own. You won't have to worry about it and you know, you're going to be getting the most out of that. Kevin Weiss from Body Performance brought to you by Rip Tone Fitness Products. Hope this helps you out.
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