How to Learn Anatomy in 7 Easy Steps

Jak Hancock, Wodonga Campus Course Crusader and Coach at the Australian Institute of Fitness VIC, and otherwise known as INBA Mr World Fitness 2013, explains some simple steps to learning anatomy.

• Get Started. The first step to any journey is to begin. So rearrange your schedule, tell your friends you’re out of action for a while (or invite them around), grab your textbooks and accessories, and figure out what’s really lying under your skin.
• Get Exercising. Since we are all spending most of our spare time exercising, thinking about exercise, or finding cool ways to exercise, we might as well start recording how we exercise! Write your program down before or after a session, and write down which muscles you are working in each exercise. If you’re unsure, there will be a Fitness Coach close by to help. This is a fun way to learn.
• Get Talking. With your kids, parents, partners, or just passers by! Find someone willing to listen and start telling them your fun anatomical facts. 206 bones this, 1st carpo-metacarpal joint that, and in no time you will be retaining information you only just learnt.
• Get Massaging. You just became everybody’s best friend! Handing out massages gives you a fantastic hands on experience of where the muscle sits on a REAL person. You can assess the individuality of everybody’s muscles and follow them from the origin to the insertion, all while getting some kinaesthetic learning in.
• Get Drawing. Whether you’re a regular Rembrandt or a Rem-cant, drawing out the path of a muscle, or trying to make sense of blood flow through the heart, can be a fun, and challenging way to learn. Have an accurate picture nearby to help and stimulate those visual and kinaesthetic senses. One muscle at time will work best, and you can build your own poster at the end.
• Get Colouring. A natural follow up to your recently drawn artwork (unless it was more of an abstract) is to colour the pictures in. You may want to go and purchase yourself an anatomy colouring in book and a set of Derwents, find a comfy patch of carpet to lie on and get colouring! You will find that you spend 5-10 minutes on each muscle or bone, getting a great visual as to where it all sits in the body.
• Get Quizzing. Anatomy apps, print outs, hand written quizzes or flash cards tied up with string these are a few of my favourite things. It doesn’t matter who or how, but if there’s an anatomy question, you can have a crack at answering! Hot Tip: never be afraid to fail. Cover up the answers and give it your best shot!

• Bio

AIF

The Australian Institute of Fitness

The Australian Institute of Fitness (AIF) is the largest and longest established fitness training organisation in Australia, with dynamic training methods and expert course coaches nationwide - spanning fitness, massage and nutrition. The AIF qualifies more fitness professionals than any other provider in Australia, as well as offering a broad range of continuing education courses (CEC), upskilling resources and partnership programs for existing industry.