Anyone who has been a part of athletics or a fitness community has likely heard this question in regards to a particular exercise:

“Yea, but what muscle(s) does it work?”

I have been asked this question by my collegiate teammates, friends, family, and strangers at the gym. I am never offended by it, but the asker is often disappointed with my response.

“I don’t think you’re asking the right question.”

Granted, for some people it is the right question. If you’re a body builder and one of the judges in your last competition complained about how your forearms are wider than your calves, it’s the perfect question. But I am not a bodybuilder, most people are not bodybuilders, and I have never been asked this question by a bodybuilder. A bodybuilder would answer it much better than I could.

But as a collegiate-turned-recreational athlete, training your body by isolating and activating specific muscles is like learning to play guitar one finger at a time. There’s a way of doing it that makes much more sense.

You see, I have always seen athletics as a tremendous complement to my academic pursuits. I do not mean this in the sense that most people would- physics to train my mind and athletics to train my body.

Instead, I realize that training your mind and training your body are the same thing. I encourage you to remember your high school human biology class. Out of all the biological systems you studied, there was no ‘muscular system.’ You studied a ‘neuromuscular system.’

The prefix is very important. Our muscles might be powerful engines, but they are just engines; they are useless without an effective operator. It is our nervous system that orchestrates our movements- a grand conductor of an astoundingly complex symphony. When you set out to complete an exercise at the gym, it is not unlike setting out to complete an exercise from your math homework. Your brain is asked to complete a task, and it figures out a way to do it. If you repeat that task often enough, you will become better at it – whether it’s high school math or pull ups.

The term ‘muscle memory’ is not an accident, and it is misleading. It is not an accident because it is not unlike any other functional memory- language for instance. But it is misleading in that muscles do not have facilities for storing data. These ‘memories,’ like every other, are stored in your brain and in the structure of your nervous system. When you keep doing the same exercise in the gym over and over again, you’re suggesting to your brain: “Hey, why don’t you save a shortcut to this motion for later?” And it obliges.

When I walk on my hands in the gym, the point is not to make my arms bigger. It’s to show off in front of the ladies.

Kidding.

I want the blood to rush to my head. I want to acclimate myself to inverted operation. I want my body to learn to balance on its arms like it balances on its legs. My muscles have not gotten bigger since I started practicing this. My overhead presses have not improved. I am not stronger than I used to be in the sense that my muscles can move around more weight. I am just better trained.

However, this is only possible when they provide accurate details related to their viagra online medical condition. You just need to inject medicine directly sildenafil overnight shipping into the shaft of the penis when you desire to go with Kamagra Buy. Key ingredients of this herbal oil are Ashwagandha, Tulsi, Jaiphal, Samudra Phal, Jaipatri, Kapur, Dalchini, Sona Patha, Jawadi Kasturi, Nirgundi and Buleylu oil. viagra tablets in india If a guy cannot cialis generic overnight get it up or keep it up during intercourse with their partner. I do this because I strive for balance in my neural capabilities, because that balance keeps me happy and injury-free. I want my left arm to be able to do what my right arm can. I want my feet to be able to do what my hands can, and vice versa as best as they are able. It is the same reason why I chose to study physics in college and why I spend so much of my time writing on seemingly disconnected topics.

But let’s not dismiss the importance of the female spectator. I will shamelessly admit that I have performed feats of strength I doubted I was capable of – all because a girl was watching. Have I ever spoken to one of these spectators (I would prefer to call them ‘admirers,’ but let’s be honest)? No. But you know what? RAWR. MANLIHOOD. It’s fun anyway.

Did my muscles suddenly get bigger and denser the first time I completed a front lever, just because a cute girl was watching? Nope. Pop-eye’s trademark transformation defies the laws of physics!

So what happened? It should be obvious to all that our muscles are not merely on/off. We’ve all shaken the douchebag’s hand – the one who tries to strangle the life out of your fingers. Why is he a douchebag? Because he didn’t have to do that. He could have squeezed gently if he wanted to. We are able to very delicately calibrate our movements because there is a mechanism by which the neurotransmitter that causes our muscles to contract can be inhibited. This mechanism also prevents us from injuring ourselves.

But it is sometimes necessary to override this inhibitor with adrenaline – whether it’s to attract a mate or for survival’s sake. We’ve all heard the urban legends of the desperate parent who lifted a car off their squished child. Meanwhile, an elite athlete’s performance is often noticeably boosted in competition with respect to their performance level in practice

The point I am trying to make is that the majority of functions that control our athletic movements are neurological, it is only a modest portion that is mechanical. You can become stronger and faster without gaining/losing weight or lowering your body fat percentage. Design your exercise program accordingly. Don’t worry about which muscles are too weak or too small. Worry about which movements you’re bad at, and the static positions you have trouble holding. Then practice them!

By worrying about your muscles in isolation, you’re making your training more complicated than it needs to be. Do you have bad balance? You don’t need to work your abductors/adductors in those absurd sitting machines. Stand on one leg. Getting too easy? Stand on a slackline. Make it fun. Want to run faster? Train faster. Perform quick, powerful exercises like Olympic lifts, kettle bell lifts and medball tosses.

But most importantly, just go out and move your body. Figure out the activities you like to do and want to do, and then do them. Your muscles will take care of themselves. Move your body in the ways you like to move it and your body will adapt into the athlete you want to be. Don’t like running but love soccer? Play soccer. Like to dance? Do it, it’s awesome. Don’t like lifting heavy weights? Have you tried gymnastics? Think the guys/girls in that yoga class are cute? Join them.

It is silly to pursue fitness without pursuing happiness, and the easiest way to pursue happiness is to do things that make you happy. You do not need to follow Men’s Health’s prescriptions if you want to look and feel the way you want. And more importantly, the way you want to look and feel is not necessarily the way Men’s Health makes you think you want to look and feel.

Some people may say that all of this is obvious. Of course your nervous system controls your muscles. And they’re right. But just because something is obvious; just because we all learned something in school does not mean it is well internalized. The language used in a staggering portion of the fitness community – language that largely ignores the motor function of our brain and neurons – suggests to me that it has not been.

You’ve heard of athletic and academic prodigies, but rarely do we hear ‘athletic genius.’ And I think it’s a shame that this word has become so limited to so-called ‘intellectual’ pursuits that exclude sports. Because Usain Bolt and Michael Jordan possess just as impressive a neurological function as Mark Twain or Nikola Tesla did (or whoever you call your intellectual heroes), it’s just in a slightly different clump of tissue.

So if you’ve forgotten, or never quite had that eureka moment in track practice a couple hours removed from bio class, this is for you:

Fitness training is brain training.