Show Muscles vs. Go Muscles
Show muscles are muscles people most love to train, our chest, traps, biceps, quads, and abs. Go muscles tend to be on the backside, stabilizing and driving speed and power while strengthening our glutes, hamstrings, lats, and calves.
In reality, all muscles are show and go muscles. There is a better lens to see this through, all muscles in the human body are important, and if training is optimal, they will look great and help you perform whatever tasks are required. The determining factor isn’t the muscles trained, but how you train them.
When only training for aesthetics (to look good), train in a way that enhances performance. Think of professional athletes. They have some of the best bodies in the world, but only train for performance.
Below is a list of factors that will guide your training to look great and enhance performance.
Stop Training Muscles. Train the nine foundational movements instead of specific muscles. Squat, hinge, push, pull, carry, rotation/anti-rotation, lunge, gait, and throw/catch.
Balance Training. Each movement should be broken up evenly during training. A good rule of thumb is to train the backside two times more than the frontside. That can be done with frequency or increasing the set of reps.
Vary Training Goals. When aesthetics is the goal, get away from the basic bodybuilding rep ranges (eight-15 reps) will enhance physique. Training for strength (one-five reps) can make muscles thicker and denser when lifting heavier weights. Don’t be afraid to add in power/speed training (one-five reps with lighter weight done as fast as possible). Speed training enhances coordination and muscle contraction, which creates a better mind-to-muscle connection.
Don’t Forget About the Little Things. Training for aesthetics is great because most people hit some of the smaller muscles that get forgotten about. So, when training for performance understand only performing the nine foundational movements isn’t enough, find some weaknesses and train those muscles specifically.
Conditioning over Cardio. Cardio is essential to maintaining a great “beach bod” (think of just burning calories). When training for performance, conditioning is one of the most important factors because it allows you to continue to perform the desired tasks over extended periods of time, and aids faster recovery. The great part about conditioning for performance is that it burns calories too. So, why not get fit and burn some calories?
Contact your Semper Fit team to learn more.