Whether you are starting an exercise routine or you are an experienced athlete, it is important to keep your nervous system toned and keep particular areas of your body conditioned.
When you want your body to perform an action, a toned nervous system will make for efficient movement due to strong signal strength between both muscle and brain.
Depending on the desired action and the environment that action will take place in, your body will have to control the movement, right? So, when there must be more body control than not, such as performing an overhead press with dumbbells as opposed to performing the same action on a machine, the level to control is increased with the dumbbells rather than the machine, following so far? This concept is called "degrees of freedom." Simply put, when you place your body in an environment that is less restricted and there are higher possibilities of improper technique, there must be more control and there will be more "degrees of freedom" in order to perform the action properly. Under Gruebler's definition, he states that "the degrees of freedom of a mechanism are the number of independent relative motions among the ridged bodies."
Without getting too complicated, on a machine, there is less chances for you to mess up with an overhead press as opposed to dumbbell overhead pressing. The reason why I feel it necessary to use dumbbells first rather than a machine is because when attempting to create a "motor pattern” and attempting to increase the signal strength between your brain and muscles, the motor pattern may be achieved faster when using light weighted dumbbells.
Because you will be using dumbbells first, it is also important that the respecting tendons/muscles surrounding joints must be conditioned. There are five check points that need focus that address these areas: foot/ankle, knee, hip, shoulder and head/neck. So, pick and choose from the following list and perform the exercises listed. On certain days, "punish yourself" and hit these exercises hard at the end of a tough workout. On other days, just "touch" on a few exercises, keeping it light and keeping the pattern fresh in your mind. The increased frequency of movement will again allow for increased efficiency. Muscles/tendons surrounding the five major check points again must be conditioned for injury prevention. Those check points are as follows.
1. Foot/ankle complex
2. Knee complex
3. Hip complex
4. Shoulder complex
5. Head/neck complex
I chose to start with the foot/ankle complex because many deviations and dysfunctions’ arise from improper gait. Usually, an imbalance in this area affects the other four.
Do These Exercises All of The Time...
Exercise/ Muscles hit/ Complex
Double & Single Leg Bridge/ Glutes, Hamstrings/ Hip & Knee Complex.
Single Leg RDL/ Hamstrings, Lower back/ Knee & Hip Complex.
Back Extension & Supermans/ Spinal erectors, Rear delts /Hip & Shoulder Complex.
Toe Raises/ Anterior tibialis/ Foot & Ankle Complex.
Low & High Wood Chops/ Internal,External oblique/ Hip Complex.
External & Internal Rotation/ Rotator group/ Shoulder Complex.
Cable High & Low Reverse Flies/ Upper, Middle trapezius,
rear delts/ Shoulder Complex.
Standing & Squatting on unstable surface/ Major muscles of lower body/ Foot & Ankle, knee and Hip Complex.
