Understanding how all of the elements and systems of your body can effect and determine the quality of your muscle health and why you may be experiencing the signs of poor muscle quality.


What Determines Muscle System Performance?

The Certified Muscle System Specialist TM


Muscle System Overview

The muscle system is responsible for creating motion as well as holding positions.  Both scenarios involve an increase of force on the body, whether those forces come from something acting on the body or from the muscles themselves.  As forces continually change, the muscle system senses and responds to those forces.  We often take this process for granted as muscles are contracting and relaxing all day long to move us and hold our position. E.g. getting in or out of bed or a chair, to lifting weights, or running 5 miles.  The forces vary from none to a lot.  For an individual to control the body in a manner that contributes to both the quantity and quality intended, the muscle system needs to be able to sense and respond to the forces placed on it and relax when there are none.  When the muscle system begins to perform at a lower quality, it is less capable of managing those forces.  Lower quality muscle performance may manifest as reduced mobility and/or unwanted sensations like pain.  What can be done to improve the quality of muscle system performance?  An Exercise Professional who is certified as a Muscle System Specialist TM is trained to locate low quality muscle performance and improve the quality of the muscle system.  This may improve movement quality and reduce or eliminate unwanted sensations.

What may contribute to lower quality muscle performance?

Many things can lower the quality of muscle system performance.  Physical overuse, underuse, poor nutrition, illicit drugs, medications, structural damage, obesity, disease, stress, etc.  Some by themselves.  Some in combination.  In each case, a bodily system is being affected.  Due to the integrated nature of the body, each time any bodily system has a stress placed on it, that stress may influence the muscle system.  The Certified Muscle System Specialist takes a holistic and systems view of the body. While the Certified Muscle System Specialist doesn’t attempt to directly resolve issues in any of the other systems, they recognize that the more stress on the body, from any of its systems, can influence how decisions are made to interact with the muscle system.  In other words, an individual that presents with a movement and/or unwanted sensation issue and has been diagnosed with a disease may require a different intervention strategy as compared to an individual that has no diagnosed disease.  Taking this broader systems view allows the Certified Muscle System Specialist to offer a more precise and personalized strategy that can help make progress in improving muscle system quality as efficiently and as safely as possible so that activities of daily living and exercise is comfortable and more enjoyable.