You Need to Sweat the Small Stuff

Most training programs are great at targeting the larger muscles that are responsible for moving our joints and improving our physical appearance.  We focus our workouts on heavy pushing, pulling, squatting, lunging, and lifting objects off the floor because we’re told that’s how we get the biggest bang for our buck.  We crave a results-driven approach to physique change and strength gains, and we’ve been taught the most efficient way to achieve this is with intensity and resistance.

Unfortunately for those of us over 40, this mindset is exactly the reason many of us suffer chronic injuries.  Most injuries that plague people over 40 occur in the smaller muscles that are designed to create support and stability, not those that drive movement; areas like our shoulder and hip rotator cuffs, our deeper spinal musculature, the muscles that support our neck and feet/ankles.

When we were younger, we suffered from muscle strains of the prime movers (pecs, hamstrings, quads, calves, etc) of our joints when we trained too intensely or often.  Fortunately, our youthful resilience allowed us to overcome those setbacks and we often returned to training within a few days. 

However, as we age, our joints and the small muscles that support them change.  As a result of the stress we put on them (both acute and chronic), the stress we avoid by being sedentary, and the repositioning they experience as a result of muscle imbalances and postural changes our joints become more vulnerable.  The end result of this “wear and tear” is that rotator cuff strain in our shoulder, the bursitis in our hip, and/or the arthritis in our spine.  These types of chronic pain issues are often the ones that land us in physical therapy for 6-8 weeks, or worse, on the operating room table. 

Over the past 25 years, I’ve heard clients speak of the “inevitable.”  Clients think it’s inevitable they will get hurt, or won’t be able to workout the way they used to, or they will be limited to the type and intensity of the workouts they once knew.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  What clients must realize is you need to train the small stuff and include activities that strengthen our supporting structures to improve our resiliency.

If we can understand the reasons for, and come to appreciate the value in training the “small stuff” with the same discipline and regularity we train our aesthetic muscles, we could virtually eliminate the hiccups that lead to lapses in training.  Some of the best preventive exercises may already be known to most of you.  If you’ve ever been to Physical Therapy, for example, the exercises they provide you in treatment are often the same exercises you should be using to prevent occurrence and/or reoccurrence of those injuries. 

At Marino’s Fitness we pepper our stability exercises throughout our workouts, in many cases with smoke and mirrors.  Although sometimes we find it essential to have some clients perform concentrated isolation drills, many of our small muscle stability and strengthening exercises are integrated. 

Are you curious to know why we perform variations of stepping down exercises?  Yep, they train the small muscles of the hip and ankle, while lightly loading the tendons around your knee to help prevent knee pain. 

Have you done your biceps curls with your shoulders rotated outward?  It looks kind of awkward, but the position creates an isometric contraction of your rotator cuff muscles and those between your shoulder blades to improve your posture and create stability at your shoulder.

How about the last time you did a bridge or a hip thrust with a mini-band around your knees?  That one is great for strengthening the small muscles on the outside of your hip, while simultaneously working your larger glute muscles.

What about the last time you were asked to take off your shoes to do a Reverse Slide Lunge or a Single Leg Romanian Deadlift?   Being barefoot, or having a band wrapped around your ankle during these drills, helps strengthen the foot and ankle musculature along with challenging the sensory receptors to help improve your balance.

Although we’re going to make it a little more difficult for you to find our “specialty exercises”, if you need a resource to locate exercises that can help you work on the small stuff, we do have a large video library on Youtube.  Click HERE for our Stability & Posture Playlist.

It’s easy to understand why people avoid tedious, low intensity or low resistance drills that can help prevent injuries.  There’s often little fun and no glory.  Unfortunately, as we get older there is often no consistent fun and glory if we don’t sweat the small stuff.

If you need help with your fitness program, we are open and accepting new clients on a limited basis.  We’d love the opportunity to meet with you to discuss your objectives.  Click HERE to sign up for a FREE Strategy Session to see if we’re a good fit for you.