Mastering Movement through Corrective Exercise

Hundreds of years ago there would be no need for much of the information found in this journal. At that time, we did not have many of the energy-saving conveniences of modern society like automobiles, remote controls or e-mail. Few people were overweight, except for those wealthy enough to afford to pay others to do their manual labor for them. However, despite all of our advances, our healthcare system is overtaxed due to the costs related to obesity, low back pain and other diseases related to lifestyle. The desk and chair is today’s most common workplace, sometimes for 10-12 hours without break. This can be considered the primary culprit in many of these maladies as the inactivity brings metabolism to a screeching halt, while stiffening our bodies into forward-flexed slouching postures.

As an answer to this plethora of aching backs, hips, shoulders and necks, a new form of therapy has emerged called “Corrective Exercise”. This science applies various stretching and strengthening techniques that work to undo the imbalances caused by poor posture and movement habits. This system works at two levels:

-Structurally – Tissues that become too tight and knotted from being overworked and/or continually being held in shortened positions can be relaxed and restored to their natural length through various stretching, relaxation and self-massage techniques.

-Neurologically – As the saying goes, “if you don’t use it you lose it.” Many of the muscles we no longer use because of inactivity and poor posture and movement habits not only atrophy and weaken, but begin to become ineffective and “shut off”. Exercises are implemented that work to turn these parts back on and restore normal function.

“That’s great, but I just want to look good in my bathing suit!”

We here this plea all of the time, which urges us to enlighten our clients that through Corrective Exercise, we may actually be able to achieve better results in a shorter period of time. Let’s use one example of the glutes. Everyone would like to have a nice backside. However, since many people spend the majority of their days sitting in desks and chairs which over time leads to shortening and hypertonicity (fancy for overactivity) of the hip flexors, the muscles that attach your thighs to your pelvis and spine. When this happens to the hip flexors, they begin to inhibit or “rob energy” from their antagonists (opposing parts) which are the gluteal muscles. In turn, when someone in this state goes to perform an exercise designed to target the glutes, they respond poorly, if at all. This can have the person doing countless rep after rep and getting minimal, if any, positive results.

Through Corrective Exercise, these dysfunctions can be undone and the glutes can be retrained to work properly again, if not better than ever. This leads to the trainee getting a greater training response from every repetition, allowing them to achieve heir goals faster and more efficiently.

So which Corrective Exercises are Best for Me???

Every body responds to stress in different ways, so it is impossible to provide a formula that fits all individuals specifically. There are some commonalities that we have found over the years and so we came up with the “Big Six”, which are the six most common correctives exercises that we recommend to our clients. The Big Six are as follows:

1. The Prone Plank
2. The Prone Cobra
3. Hip Bridging
4. Lower Abdominal/Pelvic Stabilization
5. Quadrapred / Horse Stance
6. Single Leg Stance

There are countless variations of each of these movements and each can be done statically for time or dynamically for repetitions. Since the goal of each is stability, more of a focus is put on building a foundation of local muscular endurance and not to achieve great maximal strength gains. (Example: Holding a Prone Cobra for 2-3 minutes rather than doing sets of 8-12 with additional weight)

Beyond the Big Six are the custom Corrective Programs that we design specifically for each of our clients. These programs are based on each individual’s unique weaknesses and imbalances that are discovered during our evaluation process. The foundation of this assessment is a system called the Functional Movement Screen or the FMS. The FMS was created by a group of physical therapists and athletic trainers as a means to objectively measure functional movement. Based on an individual’s performance in 7 fundamental movement patterns, they are given a score from 0-3 for each test which will then be totaled for an overall score for the entire screen that can range from as low as 0 up to 21. Trainees who can achieve a perfect score can become members of our exclusive “21 Club”. This is a monumental milestone that only a handful of clients have accomplished, even though we have put hundreds of individuals through the screen. Therefore, our goal is not perfection but rather an elimination of asymmetries and dysfunctions that could inhibit us from reaching your training goals and/or possibly lead to injury.