Become a Personal Trainer and learn the benefits of working in 3 planes

Become a Personal Trainer
- Benefits of training in 3 planes

Every Personal Trainer should know…

Here at MFT Global you will often see us doing what you may consider to be unconventional exercises. You will also often hear us referring to working in three planes. But what is this, and why do we do it.

Our bodies constantly move in three planes of motion:

  • The sagittal – body moving up and down or forwards and backwards
  • The frontal – body moving side to side
  • The transverse – body moving with rotation

Even the simple act of walking will operate in them all, legs and arms moving forward and back is sagittal movement, arms and legs swinging in opposite directions to each other causes a rotation at the waist, transverse movement, and as one foot lands and the other rises a slight drop or lean occurs which is frontal movement

For many years the fitness industry has primarily worked in the sagittal plane, with any work in the other two coming as a by product of the prime movements. However, the muscles of the body are worked best by fully stretching them, or working through the fullest range. While this is nothing new in body building circles, most of the muscles of the body will stretch, or reach their fullest range when being worked in more than one plane.

Example

Take for example the glutes (as seen in the video). Lots of people will squat to improve the size and tone of their glutes (your bum). But while it hits it somewhat, the glute stretches around the hip onto the leg and actually has even more effect in the transverse plane. The hip joint can effect 6 different movements individually and another 7 using all the possible combinations. The glutes can do a whole lot of different things other than just allow you to drop up and down. The muscle fibres wrap around the hip, and as a result, the biggest stretch of the glute comes from a flexed, adducted internal rotation. To put that into a context that’s clearer, go into the lunge position and turn that foot inwards, then reach with both hands to the outside of that leg as you drop down. You’ll feel a lot more ‘stretch’ in the glute. Now add a kettle bell (or Escape Fitness Gripr) and you’ll start to really feel the power of hitting a muscle in three planes.

How to load

When we work in three planes we are also looking to eccentrically load the muscle as much as we can. Not only is this way of working associated with better muscle development and strength gains, but the latest research suggests that the muscle growth it causes is nearer the end of the muscle. Theoretically, this will give more of the craved ‘long lean’ look and less of the mid muscle ‘bulk’ caused by using shorter less complete movements.

The best bit

The best part about working in three planes is it’s more fun! Instead of bobbing up and down for endless repetitions of squats, you can try and do one set each of all the different possibilities of lunge. Then you can load them with a kettle bell. Then you can do them while moving into the position and out again, and add a Vipr…. As you can see the possibilities are endless, far more challenging and far more useful for how your body actually moves.

Look forward to our next blog post

Rich,

Head of Research

MFT

References:

Greater Strength Gains after Training with Accentuated Eccentric than Traditional Isoinertial Loads in Already Strength-Trained Men.

Walker S, Blazevich AJ, Haff GG, Tufano JJ, Newton RU, Häkkinen K.

Front Physiol. 2016 Apr 27;7:149. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2016.00149. eCollection 2016.

Early structural remodeling and deuterium oxide-derived protein metabolic responses to eccentric and concentric loading in human skeletal muscle.

Franchi MV, Wilkinson DJ, Quinlan JI, Mitchell WK, Lund JN, Williams JP, Reeves ND, Smith K, Atherton PJ, Narici MV.

Physiol Rep. 2015 Nov;3(11). pii: e12593. doi: 10.14814/phy2.12593.

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