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Stabilizer Muscles: Important Muscles That Stabilize Your Body
There are between 600 to over 800 muscles in the human body. That’s a lot of muscles to think about when doing any kind of fitness or weight training. Most of these muscles will take care of themselves with normal physical activity. Our bodies have evolved over the ages to take care of what would otherwise be a daunting task of balancing which muscles and muscle groups need more or less strength and size. This is usually the case for most types of people and body types. However, there is one group of muscles that is often overlooked and is at the core of our being. Usually referred to as the stabilizer muscles, these muscles hold our skeleton and joints and other important core pieces together!


Normally the stabilizer muscles take care of themselves gaining strength and efficiency as you increase or decrease your larger more outwardly muscle groups. It is believed that your body has a built in safety mechanism that stops your larger major muscles from causing you injury when your stabilizing muscles are fatigued. Your brain sends out (or doesn’t send out) a signal to ‘hold off’ even though the majors still have some get up and go. This is of course a good thing or lifting weights would probably cause injuries on a regular basis. It also can be seen as a hindrance if you are trying to build some muscle size and do some body building.


One way to work around this preemptive muscle retreat is to train in a sequence that isolates your major muscles last in your routine. Basically you are saving your stabilizer muscle groups to do what they do for last when your majors are closer to fatigue. This allows for a better burn or breakdown so things can build better and bigger.


So enough with the theory and on to some particle examples. Do free form exercises first. They require the most stabilization from your body while your stabilizer muscles are at their peak. Then move to a more isolating type of exercise. In other words for something like chest exercises do dumbbells first, bar second and a machine last. Or for Abs do leg raises then a cable crunch or Ab machine. I think you can see the pattern. The general rule of thumb is too go free weights then machine based. This will allow you to take your major muscles to better levels of fatigue and build more size and mass.
 
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