How Synergistic Dominance Applies to Your Work

In the body, synergistic dominance is a term used to describe a neuromuscular pattern in which a helper muscle — the “synergist” — takes over for the prime mover in a given movement (the “agonist”).

In theory, every physical movement is initiated by a specific muscle, known as the agonist, or prime mover, and helped by accessory muscles, known as the synergist.

In practical reality of biomechanics, sometimes the prime mover is weak or inhibited, and the synergist helps out more than it should — to the point of taking over the primary role.

This pattern is known as synergistic dominance.

For example:

When you move from sitting to standing, as in a squat or when getting up from a chair, your glutes and hamstrings should be the prime movers driving the movement. If they are weak and inhibited, your adductors and hip flexors might take over.

In a deadlift, if your glutes and hamstrings don’t engage to extend your hips, your low back might take over.

The body is goal-oriented when it comes to movement; it looks for ways to get it done. Synergistic dominance is the body’s way of adapting to accomplish the task.

But it comes at a cost.

The Cost of Synergistic Dominance

Muscles are “use it or lose it.” When the synergists continually take over, the prime movers don’t get a chance to build strength, and they actively get weaker.

There’s a cost for the synergists too. When they work so hard to take over a movement that they aren’t truly designed to do, they may appear to get “stronger” — but in the wrong way. And this “strength” actually makes them weaker when it comes to the job they’re designed to do.

This can lead to pain, strains, or other breakdowns.

When a person gets injured, it’s usually not the weak part that breaks, but the part that was over-used.

Synergistic Dominance in the Cognitive Realm

While the term typically applies to the physical body, synergistic dominance also applies to the cognitive realm. It’s a useful way to think about the impact of technology, especially artificial intelligence, on our work and our mental health.

Using technology to assist us in doing our work isn’t new. For example, computers and word processing streamlined the production of documents. No more white-out on paper and re-typing over it.

Artificial intelligence is just the latest iteration of potentially helpful technology. When used as a synergist, AI can be extremely helpful and productive. When you already have a solid foundation of skills, AI can be helpful scaffolding.

The risk comes in when we try to rely on the AI to do the heavy lift of the prime mover.

If I’m doing an air squat, I might not notice that my hip flexors and adductors are taking over. But those synergists will get overloaded when there’s a heavy bar on my back. They’re not designed for the heavy load.

The same applies to AI. AI might appear to be able to handle “creative” tasks like ideation or writing blog posts, but it cannot match the capacity of a well-developed human brain in that realm.

And when we try to offload the heavy cognitive lifts to AI, we stifle development of the our most crucial muscles: our creativity, coherence, and ability to think strategically.

Develop Your Prime Movers

The remedy for synergistic dominance in the body is to work on strengthening the prime movers. When we strengthen the prime movers in the body, we allow the synergists to go back to helping in those movements, and we also free up their capacity to build strength for the movements where they are the prime movers.

The same principle applies in the cognitive realm. The solution isn’t to dismiss AI entirely. Rather, it’s to understand the strengths and limitations of both AI and our human brains.

It’s essential for us to develop our “prime movers” of creativity, ideation, and authentic voice. When we bring our strengths to AI and allow it to help us, we can create and build more effectively.