Agonist and Antagonist muscles - Personal Trainer Community - Forum

[ejcoorf]

I am studying for the ACSM and have a question. I cannot find in ACSM's Resources for the Personal Trainer, 2nd ed. anything on joint antagonist muscles. There is a chart with upper and lower extremity joint muscles , (pages 127-128) but none for antagonist muscles. Is this something we have to develop ourselves? Should I just memorize the whole chart? Also I plan on developing flash card for each joint's agonist group. Have others found this effective?

[kelli m]

Just understand joint actions and the muscles that work at the joints. If you are considering a certain joint action than the muscle(s) of the opposite joint action will generally be the antagonist.

Understand the kinesiology and anatomy. Never try to just memorize.

[ejcoorf]

I was reading Brian's tips for study and he specifically mentioned agonist and antagonist muscles. Since there was a chart for agonist muscles I thought, somewhere, there is a chart for antagonist muscles. I was impercise with my question though. I meant memorize as learning then comitting to memory. Since Brian also mentioned specifically the shoulder area I was also wondering if there are other joints that may more likely show up on the exam than others. Again thank you for the response.