Studying Anatomy Advice

Hi friends! I hope you have had a great Hump Day so far. Ever since I posted this morning’s WIAW, I have done nothing but study my face off.

The majority of you know what I am referencing when I say that I am studying. I am exactly two weeks away from taking my exam to become a certified personal trainer through NASM!

By the way, can we just relish in the fact that today is October 1st for a second? (What? How?) And if that didn’t freak you out, just think about it being only three months away from 2015. You’re welcome.

Yup, T-minus fourteen days until the big test day. I shouldn’t feel too freaked out because I finished reading all of the material and watching all of the online videos last night. I have a sense of peace knowing I have two full weeks to study my notes and notecards and know I will be fine.

That’s what I keep telling myself at least.

Lunch

After checking some emails, I went to the refrigerator and was happy to see lunch ready just a few minutes later. Yay for leftovers!

I enjoyed the same spicy pasta and salad from yesterday, minus the turkey and black olives.

Side salad: baby spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes, red, yellow, and green peppers, carrots and feta cheese with balsamic vinegar.

Pasta: veggie spaghetti noodles in Sockarooni Pasta Sauce with spinach, mushrooms, and Al Fresco Sweet Italian Sausage with added spices of pizza seasoning and crushed red pepper flakes.

After lunch, my lower body felt extremely sore from barre class and I spent a good ten minutes foam rolling my legs and glutes.

Per usual, I had to dodge pets right and left. They always crack me up!

If I even think about getting on the floor, they always instinctively know it’s happening and instantly appear to roll around with me. It’s hilarious.

Speaking of glutes… I need some advice, ya’ll.

Studying Anatomy Advice

I don’t even remember taking anatomy in high school. There was no need for any class of the sort in college with a Mass Communications degree, and I definitely never dissected a frog or any animal for that matter.

I received a question from a reader who is also in the midst of studying to attain her CPT through NASM and I wasn’t quite sure how to answer it:

“I’m trying to figure out what the best study technique would be to learn all the anatomy. Did you study each origin, insertion, isolated function, and integrated function? My thoughts are to print out each page in Appendix D and put the pic of the muscle on the front and in my own terms write out what each muscle does on the back.

What was your technique through that process? I find myself in a rut and putting off studying because I don’t have a solid study technique for this process. How is the rest of your studying going? Do you feel like you retain all the info for each chapter or do you find at times you have to go back?”

So you can reference what we are talking about, here is one of the many pages that make up the muscles in Appendix D.

Here is how I replied:

“To be honest, Appendix D scares the crap out of me. All of the muscle groups blend together and I can’t remember the names of each one no matter what I do or how I try to remember them. I was feeling similar to you around Chapter 6 and felt stumped. I actually quit studying for a while! I promise it gets better.

The middle of the book was the hardest for me to get through. I studied Appendix D as much as I could and just moved on knowing I would have to revisit it. I can recognize some muscles when the names are in front of me (like if they were listed on the side and I had to choose the right one for the right area), but I couldn’t tell you what the names are just by looking at a skeleton. I even took two anatomy sessions at the IDEA conference for this very reason! I was feeling very frustrated like you.

My plan of attack for this test is to finish my material, then force myself into the library and review all the notecards and vocabulary from each chapter. I plan to spend at least a couple of days just on Appendix D, so hopefully it comes a little easier this time around.

I’m not sure of the best way to go about it… to be honest, I’ll probably google cheat sheets and tips for remembering the names of muscles and hope to find an easier way to go about it. Maybe find some flashcards? I’m sure spelling won’t matter, and if you have a general idea of what does what, you’ll do fine. That’s what I’m hoping for anyways.”

Since I finished the textbook last night, the first thing I wanted to do before diving back in to review all of the material I covered over the last five months was take the CPT Practice Test. It is easy to access online and consists of 100 questions.

I predicted that I wouldn’t score very high, considering I haven’t even glanced at the notecards I made myself throughout the chapters. As expected, questions that required a general knowledge of the muscular system and specific muscle functions popped up.

I took the test and scored a 49. I answered just under half of the questions right, which could have really freaked me out in a huge way. Instead, I remembered that I still have a lot of reviewing to do.

I plan to re-take the practice test at least a handful of times before my test date and as long as my scores keep improving I’ll know I’m doing okay.

In the mean time, I still have no idea how to ease into remembering the names and functions of all of these muscles. A lot of them are very similar and it confuses me. Those of you who have taken this test before, or even needed to memorize the anatomy of the body for a specific job and/or certification, do you have any tips?

Any online (preferably free) resources to check out?

I would greatly appreciate any advice!

All right. It’s time for me to get out the door on a training run. I’ll be sure to check back in with how everything is going in the next week or so.

Thanks in advance for the help! <3