muscle contraction

Otherwise, we'll oversimplify a problem and really miss some of the things that we could really contribute as massage therapists.

Now, the next thing I want to talk about from a definition standpoint has to do with types of muscle contractions.

And this is one of the biggest, most challenging aspects of the way in which we tend to learn kinesiology in massage school.

Most of us tend to learn these muscle actions looking up the action of a muscle in the book.

Concentric, where the two ends of a muscle are brought closer together and the muscle shortens.

an isometric contraction where a muscle is getting a neurological stimulus to contract, but there is no movement.

For example, when you just hold a weight out in space, now let's say you're holding up a jug of milk and you're just holding on to it and you don't move, you're using isometric muscle contractions.

You're certainly performing a neuromuscular activity to maintain the position of that jug in space and keep gravity from dropping it down to the ground, but there's no motion occurring at your joints.