Women's fitness standard movements

Let me give you the core conclusion first: there is no universal "standard action" that applies to all women. Action standards that are widely circulated on the Internet can only be used as a reference baseline at best. Specific to each person, the "standard" must always anchor your physical foundation, training goals, and past injury history. If you apply a uniform template, you will easily get injured.

I just picked up a 28-year-old postpartum trainee last month. I used to practice fat-burning exercises with Internet celebrities. Every step was strictly adhered to the so-called standard of "the knees should not exceed the toes, and the higher the jump, the better the fat-burning efficiency." As a result, the inside of the knee hurt for a week and she had to hold on to the handrails when going up and down the stairs. When I came for evaluation, I found that she was born with internal hip rotation and a 1cm difference in the length of her left and right legs. The rigid standard was completely against her own body structure.

If you contact more coaches from different directions, you will find that even the "standards" for the same movement in the industry are completely different. For the same squat, the powerlifting coach requires that your hips must be lower than your knees and your back should be straight throughout the entire process. The purpose is to maximize your pushing power and reach your ultimate weight. ； However, the squat standard given by pregnancy and childbirth rehabilitation coaches to pregnant women is to squat until the thighs are parallel to the ground and stop. You can even hold on to the wall to use force. The goal is to activate the pelvic floor muscles without causing excessive abdominal pressure. The two requirements are completely different from each other, but in their respective applicable scenarios, they are both 100% correct "standards", and there is nothing to argue about.

Let’s just talk about the movements that everyone practices the most every day. There are a lot of people who fall into the trap. For example, when doing high pull-downs, many tutorials say that "it must be pulled down below the clavicle, and the chest and back are lifted until the shoulder blades are squeezed together to be considered standard." However, if you are a round-shouldered girl who sits in the office all year round, the shoulder external rotation range of motion is not enough. If you deadlift to the clavicle, you will subconsciously shrug your shoulders and use force. The rotator cuff will be worn and painful. You may suffer from acromion impingement after two weeks of practice. At this time, if you can pull it to the top of your chest, keep your shoulders down throughout the whole process, and have obvious contraction and soreness in your latissimus dorsi, then this movement is a perfect score for you. When your shoulder mobility slowly opens up, it will not be too late to pull it down again.

Oh, and there is also the Glute Bridge. There was a lot of quarrel in the fitness circle before. One group said that the buttocks must be clamped until the top is sore, and the body must even be lifted into a straight line to reach the position. The other group said that excessive clamping of the buttocks will push the waist, which is purely a wrong move. In fact, both sides are right: if you don’t have a back injury, your goal is to practice buttock muscle building, and hold the peak contraction for 3 seconds, which can indeed maximize the stimulation efficiency of the gluteal muscles. ； But if your pelvis is tilted forward and your lumbar muscles are strained by sitting for a long time, excessive hip clamping will only cause the lumbar vertebrae to overcompensate, causing pain to the point where you can't straighten your waist the next day. At this time, you should stop lifting when your hips just leave the ground and you feel a slight soreness in your buttocks. On the contrary, it is the safest and most effective standard.

When I first started practicing deadlifts, I also encountered the pitfalls of sticking to the standard. At that time, I read a tutorial that said "the waist must be completely straight and there must be no physiological curvature at all." Every time I deadlifted, my waist was stretched like a steel plate. As a result, I had to relieve back pain for two or three days after practicing. Later, I went to a rehabilitation specialist for an evaluation and found out that the human lumbar spine has a natural physiological curvature. If you straighten the curvature, the core will unconsciously release the force, and the whole weight will be pressed on the lumbar spine. On the contrary, as long as you can keep your spine neutral, not arching or bending, push off the ground first and then stand up when exerting force, even if you retain a little natural waist curvature, it is more than 10 times safer than stiffening your waist.

To be honest, many people always like to pursue "absolute standards of movement" when they first start working out. It seems that if they are just one centimeter off, their training will be in vain. It is completely unnecessary. Fitness has never been about preparing for a test, and there is no unified standard answer. If your target muscle groups are sore after training, there is no noise or pain in other joints, and you feel better the next day than before, then this action is the most standard for you.