We know nothing about a body until we know what it can do, in other words what its affects are,how they can or cannot enter into composition with other affects, or the responses or the certain movements the body have.
Its true that our body can speak as well, in fact movement is our first language. How does a body move actually? Most of us move without even thinking about how we are doing it. The process is almost instantaneous and yet it relies on a complex act of feed-forward and feed-back mechanisms built into our brain, spinal cord, nerves and muscles. There are 6 fundamental movements of major body segments that athletes and the trainers should focus on developing muscles. Fundamental movements are known as the movement patterns that involve various body parts and provide the basis of physical literacy. These movements includes, flexion, abduction, adduction, rotation, circumduction and extension.
Typically when we look at most of the posing, bodybuilding shows, when ever we hear someone say 'flex your muscles', we imagine a very strong bulky person posing in an awkward stance contracting his muscles, so that they would seem very big. However, anatomically not all the movements these body builders brings is flexing or flexion. Our bodies are an amazingly complex web of interconnected muscles joints.fascia,ligaments,tendons,bones and other tissues and organs that work synchronously and seamlessly. For a joint to move, a muscle must pull on one of the bones of the joint. for instance, when you are on arm curl machine the biceps brachii muscles pulls on your radius bone which is in your forearm. This in fact moves the forearm closer to your upper arm. In this case the elbow is the flexion. Flexion in short is a movement in which the angle between two body segments gets smaller.Now think of the opposite. Lets say leg extension perhaps, What would we observe then. That's right, This causes an increase in the angle between two body segments unlike flexion. this is also known as extension.
Next is the movement towards and away from the center line of the human body which is adduction and abduction. Adduction is the movement of a body part toward the body's mid-line. So if a person has their arms straight out at the shoulders and bring them down to their sides its adduction. For example, closing arms to the chest and hip adductor machine, When you do a shoulder lateral raise. What do you think happen to the body? Which movement does the body brings in order to finish that certain exercise? Well, when holding the dumbbell down in both of your hands, even if its one or even with a machine your hands pulls away from the mid-line of the body. This movement is called abduction.
In addition to this list, Rotation is another way our body moves, which means it is simply a movement in which something; say a bone or a whole limb, pivots or revolves around a single long axis. The body rotates in lots of ways which includes inward and outward rotation. Inward rotation occurs when a body segment moves towards the mid-line while outward rotation occurs when a body segment moves away from the mid-line. More to this, Special rotations occurs at the forearms and the feet too. Pronation is the rotation of the forearm to the palms down position same as dribbling a basketball or the seated chest press machine. Rotation of the segment to the palms up position is supination. Another example can also be a standard curl on arm curl machine. Eversion is the outward tilting of the sole of the foot while inversion is the inward tilting of the same sole of the foot.
Last but not least, is circumduction, a movement of a limb or extremity so that the distal end describe a circle while the proximal end remains fixed. So therefore a 360 degree movement must be observed. Any movement like extending your right arm to the right side can be a good example of cirumduction. I agree that a lot of sports moves involve three or more movements, so do kickboxing and kettlebell moves. A few exercises I can think of are 180 degree kettlebell swing,Around the World Kick, Star or T push-up, Twisting stability ball tuck. Moreover, the standing squat using either a barbell of dumbells can be a great example too. In the recovery phase of the exercise hip flexion and slight abduction, knee flexion and ankle dorsiflexion are the joint movements involved. In the effort phase hip extension and slight adduction, knee extension and ankle plantar flexion are the movements involved.
If using dumbells, your client can add shoulder flexion (sagittal plane) or abduction (frontal plane) to 90 degrees in the recovery phase of the squat with shoulder extension or adduction during the effort phase of the squat.
Knowing these components will help you to teach an athlete become less susceptible to injuries, improve an athlete’s ability to perform technical and tactical skills more effectively, and assist the athlete to cope with the demands of the sport. Without these components of training, individuals might never reach optimal athletic development