How Corrective Exercise Can Improve your Strength and Reduce the Chance for Injuries
What Causes Movement Dysfunction?
Do you sit all day for work? Have hip, back, shoulder, or knee pain? Have you tried walking to move more, but still have pain? You may have some movement dysfunctions from your posture sitting all day at a computer. Poor posture may be causing most of your issues.
Movement dysfunctions start with keeping poor posture. Poor posture while working has increased with people working at their dining room, kitchen, or coffee tables during the pandemic. If you think about what is happening, hip muscles are shortened, back muscles lengthened, and neck muscles lengthened, you can see that issues can come up after 8 hours or working.
The body always adapts to the demands we place on it. The body is smart and stupid at the same time. It is always trying to conserve calories because our bodies have not caught up to the fact that we are not cavemen with food scarcity anymore. Because our bodies are stuck in the caveman days, when we keep a posture for a certain period of time, the body takes that as the new normal and stiffens those muscles up. If the muscles are stiff, then the body does not have to waste calories activating those muscles required to keep you in a certain position; smart but stupid. Yes we are conserving calories, but we are also causing pain ALL OVER our bodies.
I use the example of poor posture from sitting at a desk on a computer because that accounts for the MAJORITY of movement dysfunctions that I see as a Personal Trainer. It is so common that I created an In-home workout that targets those areas and does not require much equipment. I personally LOVE helping people get out of pain and adopt a healthier lifestyle. Unfortunately, I am only one person, and like everyone, I only have so many hours in the day. So I created THIS PROGRAM for people who are new to exercise or are restarting a new program, but don’t know where to start.
My approach with THIS PROGRAM is my go to game plan with the majority of people that I work with, starting with a core focus to help correct postural imbalances. I also wanted to solve the problem of equipment being scarce right now, while also reducing the costs to get started.
Corrective Exercise
Corrective exercise focuses on science backed data to improve posture. As stated above, most movement dysfunctions develop from our movements throughout the day, i.e., sitting at a desk all day. With corrective exercise, we need to reverse this process by focusing on three areas, flexibility, strength, and building a strong core.
Flexibility
There are several ways to improve flexibility: foam rolling, stretching, and building muscle balance.
Foam rolling helps break up adhesion that develops in the muscles due to being overused and tight, while also decreasing neural drive (how the body tightens the muscles to keep you in a certain posture to save calories). It also increases blood flow to the muscles, making it a great way to warm up. Now your muscles are a little looser, warm, and you are going to notice better movement. Give it a try!
Flexibility is achieved through stretching, an elusive modality in fitness. THERE IS NO STUDY PROVING THAT STRETCHING REDUCES YOUR CHANCE FOR INJURY. People either believe in stretching or they don’t. I personally believe in it and feel that it works. Now that I have gone through my disclaimer, if you decide to stretch there are several different methods to stretch, but the most common are the following:
Static stretch (holding for 30 seconds or more), dynamic stretching (quick stretches through movement to warm-up for exercise)
Ballistic stretching (explosive stretching that is used in gymnastics or martial arts)
Active isolated stretching (holding a stretch for 2 seconds or more but doing more repetitions which is used in rehabilitation).
The goal with flexibility is increasing the length tension relationships in the muscles to get out of bad posture and optimize muscle strength.
Our cores are the foundations of our bodies. All of our movements start and stop with the core. By strengthening your core, you are setting yourself up for success with movement. You have probably seen this at the gym when a trainer is working with a client. They are doing single arm or leg exercises or unbalanced exercises. ALL of those exercises require the core to be engaged to be done properly.
Corrective exercise principles I follow are why the majority of the people I work with do some form of the PROGRAM I have available for you. I want you to be pain free with optimal muscle strength. Start with your core, build your confidence, and start moving. YOU CAN DO THIS!