Glossary

Means "with air" or "with oxygen". Aerobic training yields muscles developed to perform low to moderate-intensity operations for extended periods of time, such as endurance running.

A classification used to describe a muscle that causes specific movement or possibly several movements to occur through the process of its own contraction. This is typically a term designated for skeletal muscles.

Agonists are also referred to, interchangeably, as "prime movers" since they are the muscles being considered that are primarily responsible for generating a specific movement.

For an agonist to be effective as a mover in the skeletal system it must actually cross one or more structure(s) that can move. This is typically where the muscle crosses a joint by way of a connecting tendon. As the myofibrils of a muscle are excited into action and then contract, they will create tension and pull through the tendon and pulling the lever arm of bone on the opposite side of the joint closer to the muscles origin.

Means "without air", or for training purposes "without oxygen". Anaerobic training is used for non-endurance, high-intensity sports. Muscles developed using anaerobic methods provide greater performance in short-duration, high intensity applications, as opposed to muscles developed by aerobic training methods.

found in pairs called antagonistic pairs. These consist of an extensor muscle, which "opens" the joint (i.e. increasing the angle between the two bones), flexor muscle, which does the opposite to an extensor muscle. Antagonistic pairs are needed in the body because muscles can only exert a pulling force, and can't push themselves back into their original positions. An example of this kind of muscle pairing is the biceps brachii and triceps brachii. When the biceps is contracting, the triceps is relaxed, and stretches back to its original position. The opposite happens when the triceps contracts.

Concentric Movement. The positive work used in overcoming resistance.

Explosive muscle action with resistance and momentum designed to exceed the body's range static range of motion.

Ability of the body to derive efficient and vigorous action from the tendons and connective tissues.

Think of your muscles/tendons as a rubber band being lengthened. The force that is built up in the rubber band is called elastic energy. The more force you use in pulling or stretching your muscle back, the more powerful the return snap will be.

This is why it is bad to be over-flexible. If the rubber band is too flexible it doesn't generate as much elastic energy.

The study of the function of the human body during various acute and chronic exercise conditions. These effects are significant during both short, high intensity exercise as well as with prolonged strenuous exercise such as done in endurance sports like marathons, ultramarathons, and road bicycle racing.

In exercise, the liver generates extra glucose, while increased cardiovascular activity by the heart, and respiration by the lungs,provides an increased supply of oxygen. When exercise is very prolonged and strenuous, a decline, however, can occur in blood levels of glucose. In some individuals, this might even cause hypoglycemia and hypoxemia. There can also be cognitive and physical impairments due to dehydration. Another risk is low plasma sodium blood levels.

Prolonged exercise is made possible by the human thermoregulation capacity to remove exercise waste heat by sweat evaporation. This capacity evolved to enable early humans after many hours of persistence hunting to exhaust game animals that cannot remove so effectively exercise heat from their body.

The sequencing of actions between different muscle groups which are producing and given joint movement. Certain muscles may be inhibited from cooperating, while others may be disinhibited in contributing to the movement.

Controlling which muscle fibers fire, how much tension is activated and in which sequence the fibers fire within a particular muscle group.

Muscle tension is produced at a constant velocity and the resistance automatically accommodates to muscle’s capability through the entire range of motion. Resistance is a function of the force applied without overstressing or understressing the muscles at any point.

Synonymous with conventional weight training. It involves a constant external resistance, like gravity, barbells, or dumbbells. Although the resistance is always the same, the force to move that resistance varies with the joint angle as the weight is lifted and lowered.

Also known as Human Kinetics, is the science of human movement. It focuses on how the body functions and moves. A kinesiological approach applies scientific based medical principles towards the analysis, preservation and enhancement of human movement in all settings and populations.

The sensory experience of tension and movement in muscles, joints, and tendons.

Your bones, joints, ligaments and tendons as a whole.

An electrically-insulating dielectric material that forms a layer, the myelin sheath. Usually, myelin surrounds only the axon of a neuron. It is essential for proper functioning of the nervous system. Myelin is an outgrowth glial cell: Schwann cells supply the myelin for peripheral neurons, whereas oligodendrocytes supply it to those of the central nervous system. Myelin is considered a defining characteristic of the (gnathostome) vertebrates, but it has also arisen by parallel evolution in some invertebrates. Myelin was discovered in 1854 by Rudolf Virchow.

Systematic stimulation of the neurological-muscular system aimed at improving athletic performance and defeating the tendency of the body to stagnate in training.

The muscles of the body together with the nerves supplying them.

Plyometric training is designed to produce fast, powerful movements, and improve the response of the nervous system, generally for the purpose of improving performance in sports. Plyometric movements, in which a muscle is loaded and then contracted in rapid sequence, use the strength, elasticity and innervation of muscle and as it was supposed to be surrounding tissues to jump higher, run faster, throw farther, or hit harder, depending on the desired training goal.

The ability to execute a single task with the smallest degree of error and the least number of random moves.

(pronounced PRO-pree-o-SEP-shun) from Latin proprius means "one's own perception". Proprioception is the sense of the position of the parts of the body relative to one another, and provides feedback on the status and movement of the body.

A measure of the maximum amount of weight that can be lifted by an individual without a time limit.

The ability to achieve maximal external force at the beginning of muscular contraction.

The ability to transfer eccentric stretch speed to concentric power. When you jump you bend your legs (this is the eccentric movement) then you lengthen your legs (this is the concentric movement). The best athlete is the one who makes the fastest switch from the eccentric to the concentric.

The ability of the neuromuscular system to produce the greatest possible force in the shortest possible time frame. Or, practically, it can be defined as the ability to apply force rapidly and/or at high velocities.

Starting strength is how quickly you can get your muscles moving. It's when you start to move an object. The quicker you can initiate the movement pattern the more explosive it can be.

Not to be confused with speed strength. A learned process to push near maximal loads as fast as possible. This can usually only be done with the use of accommodating resistance such as bands or chains. It is sometimes associated with Acceleration Strength.

A kind of muscle which performs, or assists in performing, the same set of joint motion as the agonists. Synergists are muscles that act on movable joints . Synergists are sometimes referred to as "neutralizers" because they help cancel out, or neutralize, extra motion from the agonists to make sure that the force generated works within the desired plane of motion.