How to train movements, not your ego

You can train in two ways: by chasing the muscle you see in the mirror or by developing movements you actually need. If your goal is athletic performance, your gym work should support speed, strength, power and coordination, not just help you fill out your shirt sleeves.

Why train movements, not just muscles?

It is easy to get confused in the gym. Magazines and social media are full of programs that give every muscle its own day, its own angle and its own burning final set. Those programs may suit bodybuilders. But athletes often need something different.

A bodybuilder’s job is to sculpt their physique. They want better symmetry, more muscle mass and a stronger mind-muscle connection. That is a perfectly valid goal. An athlete’s goal, however, is usually to do something better: run faster, jump higher, decelerate more sharply, change direction more confidently or push an opponent away.

That is where the difference lies. When training focuses solely on muscle size, the demands of your main sport can take a back seat. An American football player, for example, might spend all year chasing a better bench press, but one strong press does not make them a good player. If their lower body and posterior chain are not producing force, their performance on the field will suffer too.

The simple truth is that your body does not play sport one muscle at a time. It moves through linked chains of muscles.

How do you train for performance?

Gray Cook has summed up this idea well. Sport is about function and movement. Good performance depends on speed, strength, power, quickness, explosiveness, balance and coordination. If your sport relies on these abilities, the athletic appearance that develops through training is more of a by-product than the main goal.

That does not mean muscles are unimportant. Of course they matter. But it is a question of priorities. Do you choose an exercise to make one muscle burn, or to teach your body to produce and direct force more effectively?

Squats, deadlifts, lunges, pull-ups, presses and throws teach your body to work as a whole. These movements involve multiple joints and muscle groups at once. That is also why they are tiring. Your nervous system has a lot of work to coordinate.

Isolation exercises have their place. Leg extensions, biceps curls or cable triceps pushdowns can help bring up a weak point. But when athletes build their entire program around them, they lose sight of the bigger picture.

What should you train for different goals?

If your goal is bodybuilding, being able to feel the muscle working matters. The translator’s note in the original made a good point here: bodybuilders are right to talk about the mind-muscle connection. You need to know how to contract a muscle and direct the training load to it. Even bodybuilders, though, cannot do without compound exercises.

According to the Pareto principle, a small proportion of your actions produces a large proportion of your results. In training, it is often said that around 20% of compound exercises can deliver 80% of the results. That ratio cannot be measured directly and precisely, but the idea is practical: squats, rows and presses build a strong foundation.

Take the squat. If you want to develop your quadriceps, you can use more weight in a squat than in an isolation exercise such as the leg extension. Yes, your glutes, hamstrings, core muscles and back are working too. But it is their contribution that ultimately allows your quadriceps to handle a greater overall training load.

You can also choose a compound exercise to shift the emphasis. Back squats and front squats do not feel the same to your body. Close-grip bench presses and wide-grip bench presses place different demands on your upper body. This is where bodybuilders and athletes can get different benefits from the same tool.

A practical choice: when should you train the muscle?

Honestly, this does not have to become a battle of beliefs. The question is not whether training muscles and training movements must forever belong to separate camps. It is what your main goal is and when a particular method will help you move toward it.

• If you are an athlete, start with the movements that matter for your main sport.
• If you want muscle mass, keep compound exercises in your program, but add targeted isolation work.
• If you are slow or lack strength in a particular movement, look for the weak link, not just a small muscle.
• If appearance matters to you, make much of the change through your diet, not just by making your training program more complex.
• If an exercise involves many muscles, account for greater nervous system fatigue.

As an athlete, you can vary your reps per set and the weights you use from time to time. You can improve your appearance too. But the fundamental movements that deliver results in your main sport should remain the priority. If machines and isolation exercises steer your program too far toward sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, you may look bigger but become slower.

So what does this mean in practice? A good program does not focus solely on the mirror or solely on the stopwatch. It puts your goal first. If your goal is performance, train the movement. If your goal is aesthetics, train the muscle, but do not forget the movement.

FAQ: training smarter

Should bodybuilders train movements?

Yes. As a bodybuilder, you need a mind-muscle connection and isolation exercises, but compound exercises provide a substantial training load and help build muscle mass. Combining both usually produces the best results.

Should athletes drop isolation exercises?

You do not have to. An isolation exercise can help strengthen a weak point or allow you to manage your training load more precisely during recovery from injury. It simply should not replace the fundamental movements that underpin athletic performance.

How can you tell if your program is too focused on individual muscles?

If your program includes plenty of exercises that isolate individual muscles but few squats, rows, presses, jumps, changes of direction or other movements your sport requires, it is worth reviewing your focus.

Translated by Janar Rückenberg

Come and train! ArtGym