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The Muscle Amnesia Fallacy
True or False?
Can your muscles can become deactivated?
Answer-Sort of yes, but only in very specific context
The Muscle Activation Belief goes something like this
-Certain muscles, most commonly the gluteal muscles, they can become "amnesiac" and no longer fire/contract. This muscular amnesia requires special exercises to reactive the muscle
This idea has its basis in neuromuscular rehabilitation.
A LOT of bad ideas in the fitness world start as GOOD ideas in the physical therapy industry. For therapists who work with patients who have neuromuscular injuries, it is TRUE that a muscle can become "deactivated", with extremely diminished innervation and the loss of motor coordination, along with muscle wasting. This condition happens when there is neurological damage. Restoring that innervation requires a methodical application of neurological stimulation and exercises.
Remember that exercises is a technology, you can regress or progress the level of exercise as contextually necessary.
Eventually the goal is to rehab them to a level of normal daily function
Here is the issue: the overwhelming majority of the population does NOT have inactive muscles. They have UNDERUSED muscles. Their glutes are not "amnesiac". Rather they have NEVER used their glutes. Their muscles are not wasted, but they are UNTRAINED.
Personal training tends to look towards other, more accredited, more educated fields for guidance on what they should be doing. One of those fields being Physical Therapy.
The issue with this is that practices that work within a physical therapy context DO NOT apply in a personal training context.
The trend towards creating pathologies where none exists gives professionals something to solve
Starting around 2010, it became trend in personal training to diagnose clients with various syndromes. This practice was taken up by more than few personal training certifications, and it spread quickly across the industry. Some examples
-Telling people they are "quad dominant" and they have an imbalance between their quads and posterior chain
-Telling people they have "upper cross syndrome" and are imbalanced between their front and back muscles
-Telling people they have "gluteal amnesia" and their glutes dont "fire"
-Telling people their "core" is "inactive" and they need core exercises
-Telling people they need to work on stabilization, and get their "stabilizers" stronger
Whats the problem with all of this? It all sounds "truish", but its all based on flawed premises and/or entirely bullshit reasoning with no hard evidence
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-Quad dominance is NOT a real condition. It is almost impossible to have quadriceps muscles that are grossly stronger than the hamstrings and glutes to the point that it creates ANY recognizable issue in movement mechanics.
The "average joe/jane" population that goes to the gym, they ARE NOT quad dominant. Their issue is their legs are WEAK, and they live a movement poverty life style. Not surprisingly, having them do any kind of hip hinge pattern ,they are going to be bad at it because they NEVER DO IT.
If you expose people to a novel stimulus and they are not good at it, there is NOTHING WRONG WITH THEM. That is to be expected.
breaking this myth down even further,
-->There is NOTHING in the clinical literature that supports the idea of quadricep strength imbalance even existing in the first place. Quite the opposite
The stronger your quadriceps are the LESS likely you are to have knee pain.
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-Upper Crossed syndrome doesnt exist. For anyone that works with the body, it is undeniable that body positions and pain have a relationship. People often complain of neck pain that sit all day. Having tight muscles is common. If you make someone slouch that doesnt normally slouch, it doesnt feel good. There seems to be a range of muscular/skeletal alignment that constitutes pain free posture. Muscle and joint ergonomics IS real. If you put the body in an unnatural position, it doesnt feel good.
HOWEVER, there is NO clear, scientific consensus on the definition of "muscle imbalances", how to measure them, how to assess them, or even what is being described in the first place, especially in relation to posture.
AGAIN, we run into the problem of pathologies being made without any clear semantic reasoning and basis.
The more holistic way of thinking about this would be recognizing that poor ergonomics in daily life can lead to pain, and changing those ergonomics (how you move and how much you move) can be beneficial. Posture is DYNAMIC, not static. If you round your back sitting at a desk, thats not a big deal. But if that is ALL you do all day, with no other kinds of movement, then it might be a problem over time. Movement poverty matters more than any one specific movement or position.
I talk about this in my Posture Program; most people simply have WEAK muscles, especially in the posterior chain. Rather that diagnose people with "syndromes" and make it sound as you have some sort of malignant condition, we can improve your posture and how you move by selectively strengthening your muscles. You are both getting stronger and moving in the opposite direction of how your skeleton is normally aligned.
This approach WORKS. Both practically and clinically.
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-If you can WALK, you dont have gluteal amnesia. This one in particular drives me insane. It is categorically stupid, yet so many people believe it.
Your gluteal muscles are used in every step you take. If you can walk and stand, your glutes are "firing". If your glutes were not innervated, you would be paraplegic and unable to walk. You'd be dragging yourself in a walker at best.
When you have people do an exercise they have NEVER done, it should not be surprising that muscular sensations are produced that are novel.
Glute activation exercises have become popular for this reason, but in reality these exercise are largely useless movements that do nothing to contribute to someone getting stronger.
Its taking low effect, non-progressive exercises like band walks, having people do them until their abductor muscles are tired and burning, and then claiming "the glutes are activated!"
Your gluteus maximus isnt even working to its full strength during a band walk, thats your abductors (glute medius and minimus)
But how do you get someone to feel a muscle they cannot feel then?
This another seemingly simple idea that is broadly misunderstood.
You "activate" a muscle by doing an EFFECTIVE exercise for that muscle.
There is NO DIFFERENCE between muscle building, strength building exercises and "activation" exercises.
If you do the exercise correctly, the correct muscles are working.
Whether or not you you can ACUTELY and immediately feel the glutes working during this exercise is NOT an indicator that the glute muscles are not contracting and lengthening.
Your ability to feel a muscle working is dependent on the exercise being correct, your Execution being correct, your genetic propensity for neuromuscualr sensitivity, and how long you have been training.
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-Your core is NOT inactive, Its simply weak, unaccustomed to biomechanical and movement based stress, and you are uncoordinated and untrained.
The same problem as before. When you take untrained, weak people, and have them do exercises and movements they are not used to, they are bad at them. They then get convinced they have various neuromuscular conditions that only specialized training can solve.
Its all a lot of bullshit.
To use analogies, it would be akin to having someone learn a foreign language, watching them struggle, and on day 1 telling them they have a learning disability.
-You are never going to be skilled at skills that you dont practice and have never been exposed to
Like the gluteal amnesia, if your core muscles were truly turned off, you would be bedridden unable to move at all. Total deactivation of the superficial and deep core musculature would immobilize you. This kind of deactivation is only see in quadriplegics.
Like gluteal amnesia, is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the body works, turned into a catchy and "truthy" sounding idea, and then it spread from there.
Any exercise could be called a "core exercise"
There is no scientific consensus on what the "core" is, there are differing definitions.
If we are talking about the deep core muscles (transverse abdominis and diaphragm) those are already working 24/7. They are especially working when you go to lift something heavy. Any kind of heavy lifting that requires you to be standing is core. Even seated movements require core stability.
Cardiovascular training is what trains the diaphragm. Anything that makes you breathe hard is working the "core" also.
So is any kind of movement that requires you run, move, twist, turn your body, etc.
Punching and kicking are "core" exercises. So is jumping.
What about having abs though? Is that core?
Yes, the visible abdominal muscles like the rectus abdominus and the external obliques are core.
They can be trained with
-Situps and crunch type exercises
-Torso twisting movements (against a proper line of resistance)
There is no such thing as special core exercises. If you want to train the visible muscles, do exercises for them, and have low body fat so the muscle definition can be seen.
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The muscles most responsible for stabilization are the BIG muscles, not the small ones.
This particular myth drives me the most insane. Another incomplete paradigm that is perpetuated.
Context: all of our major joins have small muscles that cross them and assist in movement. These small muscles contribute to humans fine motor abilities. We are very skilled at doing tightly coordinated activities that require precise motor control.
However, the primary function of these muscles is not only as "stabilizers", rather they are ARTICULATORS. For a muscle like the shoulder, the four different muscles of the rotator cuff enable its multi-directional movement. The same for the small muscles of the hip.
These muscles do contribute to stabilization, but they are not the PRIMARY muscles responsible for it.
The personal training field still does not understood this.
Its a common phenomenon in medical imaging where people will have X-rays or MRIs that show joint degradation which would be considered significant. This is common especially in the shoulder. Somewhere around 60% of people over age 50 have rotator cuff degradation
Yet they have no pain, and they can still lift and move their arms normally.
How is this possible?
Because the large muscles are STILL intact.
The muscles that stabilize the MOST are the big muscles. The deltoids, the quads, the glutes, the pectorals, so on and so forth. You can tear a stabilizer muscle, and while it will affect movement function, no question, you will still have some degree of stabilization ability for simple movements. You can tear your supraspinatus, and your deltoid can compensate. You can tear a hip flexor, and you can still stand on one leg and hobble.
Tear a BIG muscle though, and you cannot move at all. A torn quad incapacitates the leg. A torn pec, your arm cannot adduct AT ALL.
But if the stabilizers DO contribute to stabilization, arent they worth training?
Sure they are, but YET AGAIN, we encounter the corrective exercise fallacy and the belief in special movements.
Most stabilizer muscles get trained while doing conventional compound movements.
Your hip stabilizers get trained in a reverse lunge.
Your shoulder stabilizers get trained in an overhead press, or a lateral raise, or front raise.
Your "elbow stabilizers" get trained doing bicep curls and tricep extensions.
There CAN be merit to doing isolated exercises for some muscles
The most notable example being external and internal rotation for the rotator cuff, but these exercises are NOT essential, and there is no evidence that that would any better than doing something like front, lateral, and posterior delt raises.
Another example would be using an adduction machine the hip adductors (the exercise where you close your legs against resistance, sometimes called the Good girl machine)
Reminder to read the long article on Shoulder Rehab Protocol.
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I think thats everything...
Any questions on the above, please let me know.
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