NASM 6th Edition chapter 5 – Human Movement Science

If you have not signed up for NASM CPT, sign up here to save 25% with my personal code PTP25.

Get your copy of the NASM CPT exam cheat sheet. It helps immensely in studying for the exam.

Make sure to check out Trainer Academy for premium NASM CPT study materials. They will reduce study time by 50% and have an exam pass guarantee. Read my full review on them here. You can save $100 on their MVP study system with the code: PTPSUB

Chapter 5 NASM study guide

Important Definitions from Chapter 5

Biomechanics: The study of how internal and external forces affect a living body (especially the skeletal system)

The Terminology of Location:

Superior: A position above a point of reference.

Inferior: A position below a point of reference.

Proximal: A position near the center of your body or a point of reference. Your knee joint is more proximal to your hip than your ankle joint.

Distal: A position that is farther away from the center of your body or point of reference. Your ankle is more distal to your hips than your knees are.

Anterior (Ventral): This refers to the front of your body facing forward. Your chest is anterior on your body.

Posterior (Dorsal): This refers to the back of your body. Your back and your hamstrings are posterior.

Medial: This refers to things close to the midline of the body. Your adductors are closer to your body’s midline than your abductors.

Lateral: Positioned on the outside of the body. Your ears are on the lateral side of your head.

Exclusive PTP CPT Offers
Gold Standard Cert	Most Popular Cert	Best Study Materials
A Good Option	A Good Option	Best CPT for you?

Contralateral: These are things located on the opposite side of your body. Your left foot is contralateral to your right hand.

Ipsilateral: These are things located on the same side of your body. You are left foot is ipsilateral to your left hand.

The Planes of Motion, Joint Motions, and Axes

Anatomic position: The anatomic position is important as a reference point for anatomic nomenclature. The anatomic position is when the body is erect, the arms at your side and your palms facing forward. This way, we can reference what is posterior, anterior, medial, or lateral by referencing this default position.

Sagittal plane: The sagittal plane splits the body into the right and left halves. Extension and flexion are movements in this plane.

Flexion: This is a bending movement where a relative angle between two adjacent sections decreases. It’s easier to imagine two separate reference points. A good example is knee flexion. In this example, the two reference points are your calves and your hamstrings. As knee flexion occurs, the distance between your calves and hand strings decreases as they get closer to one another. As the knee goes into an extension, they move further away from each other, or the relative angle increases with the knee extension and decreases with knee flexion.

Extension: This is the opposite of flexion. As with my knee extension example above, the relative angle between adjacent sections increases.

Hyperextension: This is the extension beyond the normal limits of the body.

Frontal plane: This is a vertical plane with right angles compared to the sagittal plane breaking up the body between frontal and posterior planes.

Abduction: The act that typically moves a limb away from the body’s midline in the frontal plane.

Adduction: The act that typically moves a limb towards the body’s midline in the frontal plane.

Transverse plane: The plane that divides the body into a lower and upper section.

Internal rotation: When a limb rotates in the transverse plane going towards the body’s midline. Suppose looked from a bird’s eye view, a limb moving counterclockwise towards the body’s midline.

External rotation: When a limb rotates in the transverse plane, going away from the body’s midline. If viewed from a bird’s eye view, a limb moves clockwise away from the body’s midline.

Horizontal adduction: Imagine the movement of a chest fly.

Horizontal abduction: Imagine the movement of a rear deltoid fly.

Exclusive PTP CPT Offers
Gold Standard Cert	Most Popular Cert	Best Study Materials
A Good Option	A Good Option	Best CPT for you?

Scapular motion: The act of moving the shoulder blades away from the midline.

Scapular retraction: The act of moving the shoulder blades toward the midline.

Scapular elevation: The act of elevating the shoulder blades towards the superior.

Scapular depression: The active lowering of the shoulder blades towards the inferior.

The Muscle Actions

Concentric: A concentric muscle action: happens when the shortening of the muscle tissue accompanies the contraction.

Eccentric: An eccentric muscle action: is accompanied by the lengthening of the muscle tissue.

Isometric: In isometric muscle, action is when no change in the length of the muscle happens.

Isokinetic: in isokinetic muscle, action is when the contraction speed of a muscle is constant.

Force: Any movement that results in the speeding up or slowing down of an object.

Length-tension relationships: This is the perfect muscle length that will result in the most force produced. The ability of a muscle to produce force at its current range.

Torque: Something that tends to produce rotation or torsion. The movement of a system or force that typically leads to a rotation.

Rotary motion: This is rotational movements from the joints.

Force couple: Groups of muscles that work with one another to produce a force on a joint.

The Motor Behaviors

Sensorimotor integration: How the muscular and nervous system cooperates to gather and interpret information to execute the movement.

Proprioception: This is the cumulative sensory input to the CNS (Central nervous system) from all of the various mechanoreceptors that can sense limb movement and body position. Proprioception training improves coordination, posture, and balance.

Muscle synergies: Muscles that are controlled by the central nervous system to produce the same movements.

Motor development: The maturation of muscle coordination.

Motor learning: The process of improving one’s motor skills with practice. This results in lasting changes and one’s overall capability of responding.

Motor control: The process where people use cognition to coordinate the muscles and limbs of the body.

Motor behavior: Response to external and internal stimuli from the environment. The overall study of motor development, motor learning, and motor control (a.k.a. movement).

Motor Learning

• External feedback: This is information that one will get about their performance from external sources. Usually visual, verbal, or written.
• Internal feedback: This is how you feel after practicing or performing a certain skill.
• Feedback: This is a biological system where the response or the output affects the initial input. Your sensory system gathers input from your motor system to adapt and learn new motor skills.

The Planes of Motion Again (important!)

Frontal:

• Splits the body into posterior and interior sections
• The axis of rotation: anterior and posterior
• Joint motion: abduction and adduction. Ankle inversion and eversion, and lateral flexion.
• Exercise examples: pull-ups, barbell shoulder press, Hip abduction, and adduction with cable.

Transverse

• Splits the body into upper and lower sections.
• The axis of rotation: longitudinal/vertical
• Joint motion: pronation, supination, internal rotation, external rotation, horizontal abduction/adduction.
• Exercise examples: trunk rotation, internal rotation, wood chop, horizontal adduction, cable chest fly, horizontal abduction, rear delt fly (machine).

Sagittal

• Splits the body into right and left halves
• The axis of rotation: coronal (medial-lateral axis).
• Joint motion: Extension and flexion
• Exercise examples: Hamstring curls, bicep curls (barbell), Quadricep extension, skull crushers

Common Force Couples

Hips/Knee extension during walking, running, and stair climbing = gluteus maximus, quadriceps, calf muscles.
Elbow flexion/bicep curls = shortening of the brachioradialis, brachialis, and biceps brachii.

The 3 Types of Levers

The first type of lever is where the fulcrum sits directly between the energy moving the weight and the weight itself. Some good examples are scissors, seesaws, crowbars, or a hammer extracting a nail.

The second type of lever is where the fulcrum is at one end, the weight is in the middle and the force is being applied on the other end. Some common levers that use this second type are wheelbarrows, can openers, and staplers.

The third type of lever is where the fulcrum is on one end, the weight is on the other, and the forces are applied in the middle. With this type of lever, more force needs to be applied, but in return, the weight gets moved a much larger distance. Some good examples are a fishing rod, a broom, or a baseball bat.

If you want additional study materials, check out the team over at Trainer Academy. They have incredible study materials for NASM And I have a special limited-time discount for my readers. I also suggest you check out my review on Trainer Academy here.

NASM flashcards for Chapter 5