When strength training, most people focus on working the big muscle groups, the ones you can see, like the biceps, glutes, hamstrings, and quads. Who doesn’t want more defined biceps or glutes and it takes work to get them. Keep training those glamour muscles, but there are other muscles you can’t see that need attention too: the muscles that stabilize your body and create a foundation that helps you move your body safely and more effectively.
Stabilizing muscles are smaller, but they keep your body stable when you move your bigger muscles through space in multiple planes. When these muscles are strong, they make the movements that you do when you lift weights safer and more effective. They also increase the amount of weight you can safely lift, as you can manage more weight when your body is stable.
These aren’t the only benefits of strong stabilizers. When you train these muscles, it also improves your alignment when you stand and sit, and when you do other strength training exercises. Good posture and alignment help you avoid the discomfort of back and neck pain.
Strong stabilizers can also improve your sports performance because they allow you to generate more power. Now you know why you need strong stabilizers.
Where the Stabilizing Muscles Are
How can you identify stabilizing muscles and how do they differ from the muscles that do most of the work when you lift? The muscles doing most of the work when you lift a weight are called the primary movers. Their job is to produce enough force to move the weight through space. But behind the scenes, other muscles contract to stabilize your body as the primary movers do the heavy lifting.
Let’s illustrate with the muscles in your back. The latissimus dorsi and trapezius muscles are large muscles that can move a lot of weight. But they couldn’t safely lift as much weight if smaller muscles in your back, like the erector spinae, multifidus, and quadratus lumborum didn’t chip in. Think of the stabilizers in your back as helper muscles that hold your body in a fixed position, by contracting isometrically, while the primary movers do the work.
Another example is the rotator cuff muscles in your shoulder region. When these muscles contract, they stabilize your shoulder joint so you can perform exercises like overhead presses in a safe manner. Some muscles you might not expect to be stabilizers are. For example, the posterior deltoids are stabilizers while your anterior and medial deltoids do most of the heavy lifting. Most of the stabilizing muscles are in your trunk, back, hips, and shoulders.
Global stabilizers are usually more superficial than local stabilizers (e.g. obliques, gluteus medius), but still cross only one joint. They mainly work eccentrically to control the range of the movement, particularly in the inner and outer range of the joint. Dysfunction of the global stabilizers, when they work too much or too little, can cause problems across several joint segments, resulting in pain or injury.
Now that you know it’s important to strengthen your stabilizing muscles. What are the best ways to do it? Here are four effective ways to strengthen the muscles that stabilize your body.
Do More Unilateral Exercises
Unilateral exercises are where you do a strength-training exercises one side at a time. Many of the exercises you do can be modified to be unilateral. For example, you can do split squats or one-legged squats, single-leg deadlifts, or single-arm rows. These exercises recruit stabilizing muscles more since you’re working with an uneven load and have to maintain balance. Unilateral exercises are also beneficial for correcting muscle imbalances since you can work out one side at a time.
Slow Down the Tempo and Use Lighter Weights
When you’re trying to maximize strength gains, heavy weights and low reps are of benefit, but if you’re trying to strengthen your stabilizers, slow the tempo of your contractions when you lift. Why is a slow tempo beneficial? Your stabilizers are made up mostly of slow-twitch muscle fibers, the kind that respond best to lighter weights and higher reps. A slower tempo is also helpful because it reduces momentum and forces your muscles, including your stabilizers, to engage throughout the movement.
Use Dumbbells over Barbells
The worst way to work your stabilizers is by working out on machines since they only work your muscles in one plane of motion. When choosing between dumbbells and a barbell, grab the dumbbells. With dumbbells, you recruit your stabilizing muscles to control the path of the dumbbell and keep it stable. In contrast, a barbell restricts your range-of-motion and creates a more rigid path for the weight to travel. There’s less need to stabilize the weight. Plus, when you hold a dumbbell in each hand, each side has to work independently to control the weight. That requires a bigger contribution from your stabilizing muscles.
Use a BOSU Ball
A BOSU ball looks like a ball cut in half. One side is flat and the other domed. When you do exercises standing on the domed surface of a BOSU, it creates an unstable surface. Any time you’re lifting while standing on an unstable surface, your stabilizers have to work harder. You can do a number of exercises using a BOSU ball. You can even flip the dome over and place your hands on the flat surface of the BOSU to do push-ups.
The Bottom Line
Now you know why strengthening your stabilizers is so important for posture, sports performance, more effective lifting, and a lower risk of injury. You also have a better idea on how to work these muscles. You’ll be your strongest and perform your best if your stabilizers are strong. When the stabilizers are strong, you’ll have better biomechanics when you lift too. Remember, the smaller stabilizing muscles help you build the bigger ones that make you look defined and toned. Give them some attention too!
References:
Sports Health. 2013 Nov; 5(6): 514–522.doi: 10.1177/1941738113481200.
Physiother Can. 2014 Fall; 66(4): 348–358.Published online 2014 Nov 4. doi: 10.3138/ptc.2013-51. Published online 2014 Nov 4. doi: 10.3138/ptc.2013-51.
Stack.com. “Stabilizer Muscles: What They Are and Why They’re So Important”
Related Articles By Cathe:
What Are Stabilization Exercises and Why Do You Need Them?
How to Fix Your Posture With Exercise
The Most Common Fitness Training Injuries & How to Prevent Them
Shoulder Training: Why It’s More Important That It Be Balanced
Building Strong and Beautiful Shoulders: is Your Shoulder Workout Balanced?
Abdominal Exercises: Are You Doing Too Many Reps?
