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NETA CPT study materials
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NETA CPT: Exercise Science: Anatomy, Kinesiology, and Physiology

NETA CPT · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

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Exercise Science: Anatomy, Kinesiology, and Physiology

Domain 1 covers anatomy, kinesiology, and exercise physiology - the vocabulary the rest of the exam is built on. Questions typically ask you to identify the joint action, the muscle responsible, the energy system supplying the work, or the acute and chronic response to a bout of exercise.

Movement terminology and muscle actions

  • Three planes: sagittal (flexion/extension, e.g., biceps curl), frontal (abduction/adduction, e.g., lateral raise), transverse (rotation, e.g., cable torso rotation).
  • The muscle producing the movement is the agonist (prime mover); the antagonist opposes it and must lengthen; the synergist assists; the stabilizer fixes a joint.
  • Concentric = shortening (muscle force > load); eccentric = lengthening under tension (force < load) and the action associated with most delayed soreness; isometric = no joint angle change.

Energy systems

  • ATP-PC (phosphagen): roughly 0–10 s of all-out effort, e.g., a 1RM lift or a 40-yard sprint.
  • Anaerobic glycolysis: about 10 s–2 min; produces lactate and hydrogen ions; dominant in a hard 45–60 s set.
  • Oxidative: beyond ~2 min; the only system that uses fat meaningfully and the dominant one at rest.

Cardiorespiratory responses

  • Acute: heart rate, stroke volume, cardiac output, ventilation, and a-vO2 difference rise; blood is shunted to working muscle; systolic pressure rises while diastolic stays near baseline.
  • Chronic: resting and submaximal heart rate fall; stroke volume, capillary density, and mitochondrial density rise.
  • Avoid the Valsalva maneuver (breath holding against a closed glottis) with hypertensive, cardiac, and pregnant clients - it spikes blood pressure and reduces venous return.

Worked example

A client sprints 40 yards (about 5 s), rests, then performs a 50-second set of jump squats. The sprint is phosphagen; the 50-second set is anaerobic glycolysis, because ATP-PC is largely depleted by ~10 s. Resting 2–3 minutes between such sets allows appreciable phosphagen resynthesis.

Traps

Calling eccentric action 'no force production'; misidentifying the plane of a biceps curl (sagittal, not frontal); assuming HRmax is measured rather than estimated as 220 − age; and forgetting that the oxidative system dominates recovery and daily activity, not just long runs.