Muscle and economy of movement

This is one of my favorite subjects because of its effect on everyone who can still move. 

A person’s economy of movement simply is a measure of how easily they can do their activities of daily living (ADLs), whether an office worker, elite athlete or someone using a wheelchair. The tasks we face throughout our day can either be very fatiguing or we can make them become easier by increasing the strength of the muscles that move our tendons, ligaments, and skeleton throughout our daily routine, whatever it may be. 

Our muscles work a lot like our senses. When we lose one, another tends to become more sensitive, helping to compensate for what we lost or don’t have.

For example, a person that loses usage of the legs can strengthen upper body muscles to compensate for the lost leg strength or usage, thus increasing the economy of movement and her or his independence.

When we are less active and our muscles become weaker, our weight tends to hang much heavier from our tendons and ligaments, causing structural problems and premature aging to our joints. When this happens, our tendency is to move less to avoid this pain, causing further weakness. 

If this cycle is not stopped, especially when combined with increased weight gain, the weight of our vital organs, body fat, untoned muscle on our spine, hips, and knees, along with the weight of our head on our neck, will cause premature aging to our vertebra, joints, tendons and ligaments. This causes degeneration to our mobility and eventually a dependence on others for our normal ADLs.

There are many exercises that can strengthen movements we use in real life, and you do not have to have a gym or exercise equipment to strengthen functional lifestyle movements. It’s as simple as doing what must be done more often and at a faster pace. 

For example, if you want to strengthen the muscles you use to go up a flight of stairs, repeat this activity more, along with a gradual increase in the speed going up the stairs. It will become easier because our muscles adapt to the new level of stress that help us go up the stairs. This same method works for an athlete as well, and the reason is simple: our body is designed to adapt to new or increased stresses.

Isn’t it neat? By simply strengthening the muscles that we use throughout our day, we’re less tired at the end of our day and we still have the energy for other things and to enjoy the ones we care about.

Strengthening our muscles not only strengthens our movements and makes our days go better, but it also takes a lot of weight off of our load bearing joints!