Hint/Tip Acessory Muscles, Tracy is right

[videofit]

Can someone please name these smaller muscles?

[lisarah]

Sorry, I usually stay out of these discussion but I also have to respectfully disagree with Tracy's "science" as well. I do have a few of her workouts but I do not pay attention to her explanations as much of what she says contradicts almost everything I learned in 4 years of a kinesiology degree & numerous exercise certifications (this is personally my issue with her rhetoric).

Just a couple of points pertinent to this topic:

1. Why would you want to work a muscle in isolation? The human body does not work in muscle isolation. Rather many muscles work in tandem to create movement. I am not denying that someone could have an imbalance or weakness that a professional (such as physical therapist) could prescribe exercises to overcome.

2. There are over 600 skeletal muscles in the human body, so of course there are "smaller" or "accessory" or "auxiliary" muscles. I guess you can call them whatever you like.

JMHO

[Sophie]

Originally Posted by slysam

I think the ideal is a mix of activities that use smaller muscles and larger both in some way. I guess some strenght and conditioning folks address that by doing mobility and prehab exercises in their warmups.

ITA - examples are the most recent NROL4L, Verstegen's Core Conditioning, Bret Contreras's Strong Curves, D2S. They don't necessarily say "accessory muscles" but they include activation of the stabilizers and assisting muscles to prepare for larger compound lifts. That has definitely made a difference for me in, as you say, addressing imbalances and weaknesses.

That said, I personally need a little more than those RAMP type warmups, so I try to throw in a bit of TA when I can, or if not TA, CS, Tonique mat work, Jill Miller, or others of that ilk. There's lots of ways to get at those muscles, TA among them.

[Helen S]

Originally Posted by lisarah

Sorry, I usually stay out of these discussion but I also have to respectfully disagree with Tracy's "science" as well. I do have a few of her workouts but I do not pay attention to her explanations as much of what she says contradicts almost everything I learned in 4 years of a kinesiology degree & numerous exercise certifications (this is personally my issue with her rhetoric).

Just a couple of points pertinent to this topic:

1. Why would you want to work a muscle in isolation? The human body does not work in muscle isolation. Rather many muscles work in tandem to create movement. I am not denying that someone could have an imbalance or weakness that a professional (such as physical therapist) could prescribe exercises to overcome.

2. There are over 600 skeletal muscles in the human body, so of course there are "smaller" or "accessory" or "auxiliary" muscles. I guess you can call them whatever you like.

JMHO

For point #1 - that's why I like doing TA workouts with traditional workouts. TA does NOT work muscles in isolation. There are so many body weight / balancing moves that require you to use different muscles. Also she works muscles at different angles and sometimes in circular motions.

slysam, I like what you wrote since I agree with using the compound lifts which are done in NROL, etc. along with other exercise methods like TA, Pilates, yoga, etc. That's why I mix it up with all those things. I actually agree with your whole post.

FYI - What I'm posting is not what TA prescribes or have anything to do with her "science". It's just how I like to mix up the different methods of training.

[lisarah]

Originally Posted by slysam

I don't buy into some of TA's claims about the accessory muscles pulling muscle closer to the bone and making people look sleek as a result. I know may people have good size loss results from TA workouts but I think that is for other reasons. And she also uses the larger primary muscles to some extent.

I think some of the more rational criticism of TA is inspired by her claims and the way she criticizes other methods. I personally don't think what she says is really all that different than what a lot of other instructors say in dance, pilates, yoga, barre, lighter weight toning workouts, callanetics, etc. They use slightly different language but I am not sure the meaning is that different. And all these do include exercises that target smaller and stabilizing muscles. And they all get criticised as "non-effective" by some of the popular strenght and conditioning gurus. On another fitness forum, that attitude seems really common towards barre, pilates and even yoga.

Agree!

[FirmDancer]

Sophie, Slysam - you both expressed my thoughts and gave the same examples I was thinking of.

[Sophie]

Originally Posted by videofit

Can someone please name these smaller muscles?

Difficult, because:

Originally Posted by lisarah

2. There are over 600 skeletal muscles in the human body, so of course there are "smaller" or "accessory" or "auxiliary" muscles.

On a more serious note, it is probably more meaningful to think of them not in terms of size, so much as: for a given movement, which are the prime movers, and which are the assisting/accessory/stabilizing muscles? And there are some cases where an accessory muscle may become the prime mover, depending. In fact, that's what those activation exercises are often about.

Example: if I'm doing a squat, when I rise from the lowest point, my knees have a tendency to want to turn inwards. In order to keep them from doing so, I need to recruit glutes (glute med and glute min), external rotators, and abductors, even if rising from a squat is primarily knee and hip extension. In that case, those are the accessory muscles. And for me, they're kind of underdeveloped and lazy.

So I throw myself on the ground and do some clamshells and side lying abductions. Now those accessory muscles are the prime movers. I'm working my accessories! yeah! But they're not all necessarily small.

As for naming them - see Lisa's comments above.

[Keepfitgirl]

Originally Posted by rosepetals

Tracy is right, we have LOTS of accessory muscles.

Yesterday I went to see a PT for my Sacroiliac Joint. It keeps popping out becoming unstable. The PT was totally different from other PTs in his way of thinking. He quickly showed me a technique to pop the joint back in place, eliminating pain.

Then he showed me exercises to retrain the accessory muscles. He said the key to strengthening the pelvic area was to retrain the accessory muscles. He said you have to wake them up. I said like Tracy Anderson says? He scratched his head as he has never heard of her. When I told him about her he said, finally trainers are acknowledging accessory muscles.

The muscles he taught me how to use that hold that area in are within the abdominal area. Over time he said they will work to hold the hips in place. I just thought I would let you know that his whole focus of the exercises was not the large muscle group, but was the accessory muscles. His simple technique is very effective. In one visit, I learned how to decrease my pain to about nil. It is simply amazing what the accessory muscles can do. Now if I could get my hands on Tracy's post pregnancy 2 I would be thrilled.

Please share how you pop your SIJ back in place. There are a couple of physio methods that I learned on VF that help with the pain and supposedly realign the SIJ, I was wondering if it's the same method.

Thanks

Emma

[slysam]

I have mixed feelings with TA. I do enjoy her workouts. I think she is incredibly creative and I actually like some of her coaching points and cueing. Particularly I like that she intends you to engage your whole body and really extend through the movements. This is common among dance inspired and dance workouts and I think it is an effective approach to all activities. I guess I don't really see her exercises as "isolations" even if smaller muscles are used (but she also uses larger muscles) because the intention is a whole body integration and focus. I also like when she talks about doing your workouts as if it is a "performance". I think that results in keeping the energy/intensity high rather than phoning it in. I know in the past sometimes a dance class I was in would have a performance and I would practice the choreography daily instead of my usual workouts to prepare. I usually would lose weigh doing this over a week or two. I think pretending to be performing means I give each movement my best and possibly results in a slightly higher calorie burn. I have a theory that perhaps many of the people who see good results from TA's workouts have really taken on board te mind-body connection, intention and focus. Others may not see the connection if they don't click with her lack of cuing or whatever and may better find it following another method. It is just sometimes when she starts getting too technical about the hows and whys I have issues with some of what she says.

About the smaller muscles and PT... The other year I injured my shoulder from a nasty fall. For nearly a year I tried working around the pain and TA's arm work was among the only workouts I liked doing on my injured arm/shoulder. I did find it therapeutic , but I really kept control of the movements since i was wary of worsening the injury. Well, I don't think TA made it worse--it actually felt better on days when I did the arm work. But it didn't cure the injury either. I eventually ended up going to a physical therapist who did some manipulation and prescribed exercise. He thought waited too long to seek treatment, but thought it was possible that my exercise had helped that it may ave been worse if I just fully stopped exercise for a year. He did identify some imbalances on just the injured side and my neck (I have had previous whiplash injuries--he thought that might be contributing). Within three months of his exercises, the pain left, my range of motion returned and my arms were more symetrical that they use to be (though perhaps TA helped there). I am still amazed that after a year of pain, it could have healed in just three months.

The resistance he had me us was a band tied to a door nob. I played around with weights to find the same resistance and it seemed to be about 3 pounds. So now I usually mix the PT exercises with light weight into my warmup for upper body work. The angles he prescribed to me and the rep ranges were different than TA (the reps were normal strength reps 10-15 reps, 2-3 sets). When I was doing my PT workouts at home, I did warmup with the unweighted portion of TA's arm webisode. Whether it made a difference, I can't say but it didn't seem it harm anything. The PT workouts did help me realize that sometimes lower resistance can be effective for certain muscles anyway.

[Nuggie's Auntie]

Originally Posted by slysam

I have mixed feelings with TA. I do enjoy her workouts. I think she is incredibly creative and I actually like some of her coaching points and cueing. Particularly I like that she intends you to engage your whole body and really extend through the movements. This is common among dance inspired and dance workouts and I think it is an effective approach to all activities. I guess I don't really see her exercises as "isolations" even if smaller muscles are used (but she also uses larger muscles) because the intention is a whole body integration and focus. I also like when she talks about doing your workouts as if it is a "performance". I think that results in keeping the energy/intensity high rather than phoning it in. I know in the past sometimes a dance class I was in would have a performance and I would practice the choreography daily instead of my usual workouts to prepare. I usually would lose weigh doing this over a week or two. I think pretending to be performing means I give each movement my best and possibly results in a slightly higher calorie burn. I have a theory that perhaps many of the people who see good results from TA's workouts have really taken on board te mind-body connection, intention and focus. Others may not see the connection if they don't click with her lack of cuing or whatever and may better find it following another method. It is just sometimes when she starts getting too technical about the hows and whys I have issues with some of what she says.

I'd absolutely agree about performance enhancing a workout--I've found full extension and treating my barre workouts as a dance make them markedly more effective. Tracy is very creative and can be a nice change from more traditional workouts.

What I can't abide about her is her lousy cueing. And I think she's done women a huge disservice with blanket statements like 'women should never lift heavier than 3lbs.' and playing into bulking fears, etc.