OnFitness Magazine - July/August 2016 - 65

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Muscle balance is a vital component to
injury prevention. The major muscle groups
work in pairs, and those muscle pairs need
to be balanced in terms of strength and
flexibility. For example, we bend our elbow
by using the biceps muscle. Its pair is the
triceps muscle. The triceps muscle must be
willing to stretch for the biceps muscle to
contract and bend the elbow fully.

superior-inferior), sagittal (cut in half
lateral-medial) or coronal (cut in half
posterior/anterior).
This sectioning of the body creates not
only portions of the body that must
remain in balance but movements that use
primary and opposing muscles.
Anterior/posterior: Each of us has a
front side and a back side, and because the
back, legs and arms must operate as
fulcrums, we can usually break down most
activities and their muscle groups into
whether they are providing backward
motion or forward motion, either to a
particular appendage - arm, leg, neck,
hand - or to the body as a whole.
Superior/inferior-dorsal/plantar:
These motions deal with up-and-down
movement. Here front and back is simply
turned 90 degrees.
For example, in dorsal versus plantar
motion, flexion of the wrist or arms utilizes
one set of muscles, while extension utilizes
another set. In the same way, dorsiflexion
(pulling up) of the feet utilizes the opposite
set of muscles that plantarflexion (pushing
down) of the feet uses.
The muscles that usually move a body
part in a forward direction will be

antagonized by those muscles that move
that body part in the opposite direction.
Lateral/medial-proximal/distal: This
can be a bit more tricky, because these are
side-to-side movements of appendages and
there are motions that pull up toward the
inside of the body versus motions that
push outward.
For example, a soccer player or
basketball player will move on a court with
lateral and medial motion - back and forth.
A shot-putter will throw outward, in a distal
motion, extending the arm as they throw,
but also will move laterally toward the throw
line to let off their throw.
In lateral versus medial motion,
abduction reaches appendages outward
while adduction pulls those appendages
back in. In addition, especially considering
the feet and ankles, eversion pushes
outward and inversion pulls inward.
Transverse/sagittal/coronal: This also
includes using opposing appendages, but
these are typically either mirrored muscles
(right versus left side) or muscles that
oppose each other in balance and gait.
Because we have mirroring muscle
groups on our right and left sides, we must
be attuned to whether one side is worked

more than the other. That muscle will be
over-toned, while its mirrored muscle on
the other side of the spine will be too
weak. This creates imbalances relating to
posture and gait, causing problems with
balance as well as muscle tension.
Twisting motions typically utilize all of
these types of sections. Depending upon the
motion, the anterior/posterior, lateral/medial,
superior/inferior, dorsal/plantar and
proximal/distal muscle movements all
intertwine, while other muscles engage to
balance the transverse/sagittal/coronal part of
the motion.

HARDCORE
SPRINTING
Hardcore sprinting can cause
hamstring and hip strains in outof-shape individuals. If you like the
idea of sprinting on a treadmill at
whatever speeds are super-fast to
you, or sprinting down the street
or down the 100-meter
straightaway of a track, it's
extremely important to build up
your conditioning first so that you
don't blow out a hamstring. Even
competitive sprinters injure hamstrings. Get your
body used to running first and build up gradually.
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OnFitness Magazine - July/August 2016

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