Do you need to contract ALL muscles when lifting?

J

JackShephard

0
Hi, sorry if the title of this thread sounds dumb, but I couldn't summarize it better.

Basically, you're doing, say, dumbbell biceps curls. Do you consciously try to tighten other muscles than your biceps? For example, do you grip the dumbbell really hard? Do you try to tighten your forearms, too?

I'm getting this feeling I"m not lifting properly at all because of this lack of 'tightening' of supporting muscles. For example today I injured my shoulders doing dumbbell squats (), because I left my arms really relaxed and pushed hard with the legs (basically overstretching something in the shoulder - ouch).

Does contracting other muscles reduce the risk of injury? Increase performance? Increase gains? Any advice would be much appreciated!

Cheers,

Cigaro
 
You should contract some other muscles than just the one(s) you are trying to exercise with a particular excercise. Though, the body will usually do this by itself (though you should read up a bit on ways you can do it consciously, as the body isn't perfect).
If your body notices that something is overstretching, or that a tendon is under tension, the muscle controling that tendon will automatically fire.. so your injury is kind of weird.

It's usually always a good idea to brace the "core" (think of what you would do in preperation for receiving a punch in the stomach)

When doing things where you are holding weight with your arms, you should not keep your shoulders lose, you should squeeze your shoulder blades together (the body won't do this on it's own, usually) Though there should automatically be enough tension on the muscles preventing the arms from going out of their sockets to keep you from getting acute injury.

This was kind of long winded, but the main idea is, try to stay tight when you lift!
 
I agree with Karky. For a lot of stuff, your body will kinda force itself to do what it takes to prevent injury. But for lots of shoulder involved things, you have to consciously keep them tight. Anytime I pick up DBs, I always have my shoulders locked into place.
 
Cigaro78 said:
Basically, you're doing, say, dumbbell biceps curls. Do you consciously try to tighten other muscles than your biceps? For example, do you grip the dumbbell really hard? Do you try to tighten your forearms, too?
Click to expand...

There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that squeezing the bar while lifting improves performance. I don't think it's been proven for sure but it can't hurt to try for yourself
 
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