How many times have you been told to check your form when you work out at the gym? More times than you can count, right?
And that’s good advice. You must maintain proper form when you exercise to get the results you want and avoid injury. Good form, however, is only possible because of your stabilizer muscles.
What are stabilizer muscles, you ask? Read this blog to learn all about them and what they do when you exercise at AFAC’s gym in Thornton, Colorado.
What Are Stabilizer Muscles?
Almost every muscle in your body can potentially be a stabilizer muscle. It all depends on what exercise or lift you’re doing.
That means, during specific movements, any muscle could be responsible for stabilizing you.
How do our muscles coordinate with each other in this way?
When we perform an exercise, there are primary movers and stabilizer muscles. Primary movers are the muscles doing most of the work, while stabilizer muscles reinforce the body and extremities.
Let’s say you’re trying to lift a weight. Primary movers will be the muscles you feel working during the exercise. Stabilizer muscles aren’t directly involved in lifting the weight, but they are keeping other body parts stable and steady so that the primary movers can complete the exercise safely, effectively, and efficiently.
Even though almost every muscle can act as a stabilizer muscle, some muscles take on the stabilizer role more frequently than others. Take your rear deltoids, for example. Every time you perform an exercise that works your shoulders – like a bench press or overhead shoulder press – your rear delts act as the stabilizer of the movement. That doesn’t mean rear delts are always stabilizer muscles. They are a primary muscle for certain exercises at the gym, like pulling exercises.
So, stabilizer muscles do exactly as their name implies – they keep your body stable. They also restrict the movement of joints so they don’t get overextended and injured when you perform your move.
What Are Stabilizer Complexes?
In addition to your stabilizer muscles, you also have many smaller muscles that exist within your joints (like your rotator cuff muscles). They can be classified as stabilizers because they help stabilize movements while other muscles take on the brunt of the work.
These muscles are known as “stabilizer complexes.” Your three main stabilizer complexes are in your shoulders, hips, and trunk. They are responsible for maintaining healthy joint function.
Most stabilizer complexes will get a good workout during free weight and unilateral exercises, so you don’t need to target them with more focused exercises unless you notice issues with a particular joint.
Shoulder Stabilizer Complex
The rotator cuff is a group of four muscles that surround the shoulder and stabilize it. They play a critical part in maintaining optimal shoulder joint function.
The scapular (shoulder blade) muscles work with the rotator cuff muscles to rotate the shoulder blades while your arms are moving overhead, behind your back, or forward.
Hip Stabilizer Complex
Multiple muscles make up the hip stabilizer complex, but the main one is the gluteus medius. This hip joint muscle maintains proper biomechanical function of the lower body when you’re walking or running. This helps prevent injuries to your hips, knees, and ankles.
Having weak hip stabilizers can lead to poor pelvic alignment. It can also cause other muscles to compensate which leads to muscle imbalances.
Trunk Stabilizer Complex
These are the major muscles used for core stability. There are many muscles that make up your core muscle group, including your:
- Transversus abdominis — the “corset” muscle of the pelvis and spine
- Multifidus — the muscles running along the sides of the vertebrae up to the middle of your back
- Pelvic floor — the muscles that run from your pubic bone in the front to the base of your spine in the back
- Abdominal muscles — the internal and external obliques, rectus abdominis, and diaphragm
- Erector spinae — muscles that lie on each side of the vertebral column from the neck down to the lower spine
The deep core stability muscles play an important role in maintaining healthy joints and biomechanics. You can target these muscles with exercise if you want to — not to grow them, but to keep them strong for optimal function. There are many bodyweight exercises and light weight exercises that target these muscles.
Which Stabilizer Muscles Do I Use When Strength Training at the Gym?
When you’re strength training at the gym, you’ll use different stabilizer muscles for each exercise. Some examples of the most popular exercises and their stabilizer muscles are listed below.
Squats and lunges
When you do squats and lunges, your glutes and quadriceps are the primary movers. Your lower back, calves, hamstrings, and abdominals are the main stabilizers.
Bench press
During your bench press workout, your triceps and pectoral muscles are the primary movers. Your rear delts are the main stabilizer muscles.
Deadlifts
During a deadlift, the primary movers are the hamstrings, quadriceps, erector spinae, and calves. The stabilizing muscles are the trapezius, abdominals, and forearms.
Pullups and chin ups
During pullups and chin ups, the primary mover is the latissimi dorsi. The triceps act as the main stabilizer muscles.
Hip thrusts
During a hip thrust, the glutes are the primary mover, mainly the gluteus maximus. The stabilizers are the gluteus medius, hamstrings, and adductors (the muscles in your inner groin).
Why Are Stabilizer Muscles Important at the Gym?
As we mentioned at the beginning of this blog, strong and effective stabilizer muscles will allow you to maintain proper form when you exercise at the gym. Good form is important for producing more force when you exercise. It’s also important for preventing injuries.
Strengthening your stabilizer muscles will help you correct your posture in your daily life, as well.
Here are a few more reasons why stabilizer muscles are a vital part of fitness and athletics.
Having good biomechanics
If your stabilizer muscles are underdeveloped, it can cause you to use other areas of your body to compensate when you’re exercising at the gym. This makes your workouts less effective and riskier.
Lifting more weight
Having strong stabilizer muscles will allow you to handle greater loads when you strength train. No matter how strong your primary muscles are during any lift, if your stabilizer muscles are weak, the movement will be dysfunctional and you won’t produce as much force. The more stable you are, the more force you can apply during compound exercises.
Preventing injuries
When you have strong stabilizer muscles, you’re much less likely to get injured or cause strains to your joints, other muscles, and ligaments. Strong stabilizer muscles make your movements safer both inside and outside the gym. They also reduce stress on your primary movers.
Improving Balance and Coordination
If you want better balance and coordination, having strong stabilizer muscles is key. Whether you’re working out at the gym, playing sports, or performing everyday activities, you want your entire body to be capable of stabilizing your movement. Strong stabilizer muscles will also make you more agile and help you accelerate and decelerate faster.
How Do I Strengthen My Stabilizer Muscles at the Gym?
The three best ways to strengthen your stabilizer muscles is through working out with free weights, unilateral exercises, and balance training.
Free Weights
Working out with free weights is the No. 1 way to strengthen your stabilizer muscles, guaranteed.
Unlike working out on machines, free weights force you to balance the weight and control its movement. When you move free weights, they can go anywhere – forward, backward, to the side – if you don’t stabilize and control them. On machines, however, you work out with one plane of motion.
This is one reason why you can be strong on movements like the leg press but not as strong when you do free weight squats. On the leg press, the machine has determined a path for you, so your stabilizer muscles don’t have much work to do in maintaining that path. During free weight squats, your body can fall in any direction as you move the weights up and down. Your stabilizer muscles must work hard to provide that foundation for you.
If you want to maximize your athleticism, you should work with free weights in addition to machines that control your range of motion.
Also, to really focus on stability training, you’ll want to use dumbbells in addition to barbells. Dumbbells force you to stabilize each body part individually, which means you can’t compensate for your weaker side with your stronger side. This can help you correct muscle imbalances — including stabilizer muscle imbalances.
In one study from Illinois State University, researchers measured the muscle activity among participants who performed a free weight bench press and a machine bench press. The loads were identical and the muscle activity in the primary movers (the pecs and triceps) was basically the same. But the stabilizer muscles — the anterior and medial deltoids — showed significantly more activity during the free weight bench press, an average of 50% and 33% more activity, respectively.
Machines can certainly play a role in an effective workout routine, but they shouldn’t take up all of an athlete’s training. Working out with free weights naturally translates into better athletic performance. During a game or practice, you rarely move your body in a single plane. You’re constantly turning, running, stopping, starting, pushing, pulling, and jumping at various speeds, directions, and angles. To perform these moves effectively, your stabilizer muscles must function correctly.
Unilateral Exercises
Unilateral movements — those that involve a single arm or leg doing most of the work — are also a great way to strengthen your stabilizer muscles. You can use both bodyweight exercises and free weights for your unilateral training.
Balance Training
Balance training involves exercises that add extra instability to your movements, which forces your stabilizer muscles to work harder. Training tools like BOSU balls and Power Plates are good for training balance and lower body stabilization because they add a lot of instability to your movements.
Other tools like maces and clubs can be effective because the weight is offset, which forces you to deal with a lot of instability. Maces and clubs work all your stabilizer muscles, especially your shoulder and core stabilizer complexes.
Strengthen Your Stabilizer Muscles at AFAC Gym
There’s no doubt that everyone can benefit from strengthening their stabilizer muscles at the gym. Whether you’re an athlete who wants to boost your performance on the field, a gym rat who wants to lift heavier weights safely, or a person who wants to improve your balance or joint stability, focusing on strengthening the stabilizer muscles can have a profound impact.
Even when you know what they are, stabilizer muscles are a complex topic to understand. That’s why AFAC gym has an experienced team of personal trainers on staff to assist you with designing a personalized workout program that targets all your muscle groups, including your stabilizer muscles.
As the best gym in Thornton, Colorado, AFAC’s huge selection of strength training and cardio equipment will provide everything you need to strengthen stabilizer muscles during your workouts. Our full lineup of group classes also targets all stabilizer muscle combinations. These are some of the many ways that AFAC gym is committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of our members and ensuring they see the results they’re working toward.
If you’re not a member of AFAC gym but would like more information, please stop by and speak to our team. For more information and assistance, you can also contact our gym owner, Susan, at 720-849-0245 or susan@adventurefitness.club.
