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Muscle Pairs in Movement Agonist / Antagonist Relationship

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Anatomy & Physiology

🎓 Take the Course Lesson

Overview

In this lesson, we define key muscle pairings and explain how this knowledge can inform class planning and teaching.

Objective

Acquire knowledge of key agonist/antagonist muscle pairs in major joint movements, and name poses that utilize them.

What You'll Get

Name the agonist and antagonist muscles and give an example of a pose that utilizes each of these movements: elbow flexion & extension, shoulder flexion & extension, shoulder abduction & adduction, shoulder medial rotation & lateral rotation, spinal flexion & extension, hip flexion & extension, hip abduction & adduction, hip medial rotation & lateral rotation, knee flexion & extension, ankle dorsiflexion & plantarflexion, wrist flexion & extension. Explain how awareness of these muscle pairings impact students and provide examples of how this knowledge can inform sequencing and class planning.

Introduction

Following are the key muscle pairs involved in various movements.
In these examples, the agonist / prime mover and antagonist are noted from this source.
For more information on the agonist and antagonist muscle relationship, see Muscles, Movement and Contraction.
For definitions of movement terms such as flexion and extension, see Movement Terminology.