Exercises in the Planes of Motion

When I studied for my personal training exam, there were many concepts that were more challenging to  absorb by studying them from the book.  The 3 Planes of Motion: Sagittal Plane, Frontal Plane & Transverse Plane  ( Planes of Motion from Livestrong) were one of those concepts.

Now after a few years of personal training under my belt and multiple exercise seminars and classes later, I better understand the benefits and I practice exercises in all planes of motion in just about every workout I do.  So, why should you pay attention to these planes?  I'm just an exercise freak, right???  ;-)

Well, the reason I've incorporated exercises in these 3 different planes of motion is because it helps me to build a stronger and well balanced body.  I'm an older parent and my goal is to be able to play soccer with my sons through high school (they are 9 & 7 now).   I also want to run 10K's and half marathons with my youngest when she old enough (she's 4).  So it's going to be another 10+ years of staying active and capable of playing sports with my kids without blowing out a knee.  ;-)   This is where these exercises in different planes of motion help me.

Most gym equipment will force you into a single plane of motion exercise (example: the bicep curl machine). While this is not bad for you, it may cause you to miss out on strengthening multiple parts of your body by limiting you to only one plane of motion.  As you know, I am a TRX fan.  One of the reasons I am a fan is because just about every move that I do with the TRX requires multiple body parts to work at once.  What we do in everyday life requires you to use many different parts of our bodies, why should your workout limit you to only one area? 

So, think about the exercises you do on your next workout and see how many planes of motion you are working out in.  If it's all 3 then you already know what to do, but if it's only 1 or 2 planes then start slowly incorporating exercises that work in all planes.  Over time and with the right exercises you will start to see the benefits too.

Have a great week and hope to see you for a workout soon!

Barb


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Dont forget to check out my past posts about health and fitness at barbfit.blogspot.com