In this current era of 'functional' training, core
stability and balance-oriented training it's easy to get
carried away with learning what I call the 'HOW's' of
exercise.
HOW to balance on a swiss ball, HOW to integrate movement
patterns and HOW to devise exercise programmes that have a
high transfer into 'real life' situations.
After all, these are FUN elements that demonstrate a
greater application of knowledge, skills and abilities to
our clients. Or do they?
Interestingly, when asked, many of my students (all
qualified personal trainers and therapists) had little real
foundational knowledge of what makes their exercises
'functional' beyond "they have a carryover into real life".
I call this a 'lack of WHY?!'
This 'lack of WHY' is a 'disease' of almost epidemic
proportions within our industry and one which, in my
opinion, will keep us from ever reaching professional
status if left unchecked.
Simply put, too many fitness instructors are prescribing
exercise based upon the latest trends, personal preferences
and outright exercise mythology.
This is like visiting your doctor and being prescribed
medicine based upon 'it works for me so let's give it a
go'. I'm sure that you wouldn't be too impressed if this
happened to you, but what about your clients?
What kind of 'professional' service are they receiving?
The aim of this series is to provide you with the WHY's
necessary to make your exercise prescription much more than
a 'hit and miss' process and plant your feet firmly on the
road to professionalism.
We start our journey with posture, the foundation from
which our function, and ultimately all personal training is
built.
What Is Posture?
According to the American academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
posture committee as far back as 1947, posture is:
'That state of muscular and skeletal balance which protects
the supporting structures of the body against injury or
progressive deformity, irrespective of the attitude in
which these structures are working or resting. Under such
conditions the muscles will function most efficiently...'
The key to the above statement is Balance, for it is
balance or it's antagonist imbalance that appears to be one
of the major influences in creating structural deformation
resulting in pain.
Indeed there is much evidence to suggest that chronic
imbalance can result in Postural Distortion Patterns that
can perpetuate the cumulative injury cycle. This appears to
make sense, especially if the kinetic chain concept is
applied to the equation.
The kinetic chain is best described as a movement system
consisting of myofascial (muscular), Articular (joints) and
neural (motor) components with each being dependent on the
others for optimum performance, both statically and
dynamically. This movement system requires precision of
movement based on the alignment and mechanics of each joint
as well as how these joints are recruited to create a
movement pattern.
In simple terms, the movement produced at any joint in the
kinetic chain directly affects the joints above and below
it. Dysfunction in any one of these systems may have direct
and detrimental effect on the function of its neighbours.
Clearly then, there is much to concern ourselves with when
prescribing exercise and stretching programmes to our
clients, as every programming decision we make will affect
the systems of the kinetic chain. This is obvious of
course, but have you ever stopped to think of it in this
way before?
Now 'understanding the WHY' becomes much more important
doesn't it?
Why Do These Imbalances Occur?
Firstly, we are ALL imbalanced to some degree, even if our
posture is considered optimal (we'll talk about this
later). This is because there is actually an inbuilt ideal
imbalance between the muscles crossing any joint e.g. Knee
extensors/flexors, plantar flexors/dorsiflexors. This is
simply a reflection of the functional roles of these
muscles and beyond the scope of this article.
The muscle imbalances that we must concern ourselves are
those that create alignment distortions that affect
structural function. These can be caused by but not limited
to:
Postural Stress
Living, as we do, under the force of gravity has created a
structure, which seems to have placed the ideal imbalance
in favour of our extensors; after all, structure determines
function.
Unfortunately, modern living creates a 'synthetic'
environment where sitting dominates our function and as a
result affects our structure.
For simplicity, it is useful to think in terms of postural
stress as 'training for posture'.
Imagine 'training' 16 hours/day 7 days/wk for a specific
event. You're probably going to get very good at it aren't
you? Well, most people get very good at 'bad' posture!
Many posture experts tend to use VladimirJanda's 'short
and tight' vs. 'long and weak' classification system (8) as
a way of simplifying the processes that create and result
from postural distortion and often classify muscles as
'tonic' and 'phasic'.
This oversimplification tends to ignore individual
differences in terms of 'normal' posture as well as making
assumptions based purely on static posture.
When a muscle becomes facilitated (not necessarily 'just'
short and tight) it increases in 'tone' and may decrease
the neural drive to its antagonist. This is known as
reciprocal inhibition and is a normal quality of the
kinetic chain.
However,it becomes a problem when muscles that are supposed
to be 'turned off' during a movement sequence remain
'switched on'. This has the effect of creating a situation
known as synergistic dominance, where synergists are forced
to take on the role of a prime mover due to inhibition.
Pattern overload
Using our 'training for posture' analogy above, it becomes
clear that any movement pattern repeated often enough has
the potential to create strain upon the tissues creating
that movement.
This may create stress patterns in the joint structure,
leading to arthrokinetic inhibition where the joint itself
causes inhibition of the surrounding tissues or lead to
synergistic dominance as an avoidance pattern.
It is important that the stresses applied to our joints be
changed regularly through changes in exercise, loads,
planes and ranges as well as changes to postural alignment,
if pattern overload is to be avoided.
Painful or prolonged noxious stimuli
Injury to a joint creating swelling and/or pain may
activate the type 4 joint receptors (nociceptors) that are
receptive to these stimuli. These receptors are capable of
creating arthrokinetic inhibition in order to protect the
joint from further damage.
Lack of core stability
This has been indicated as a possible cause postural
distortion and pain. We all train for mobility but how many
of us train for stability?
Just how much spinal flexion strength do we need in this
vertically loaded body of ours?
Probably not that much! Simply stabilising the platform
that our spines work off seems to improve the function most
of the clients that I work with (myself included).
Other problems occur here when the tone/strength of Rectus
Abdominis is greater than that of the Erector Spinae.
Again, reciprocal inhibition and synergistic dominance have
the opportunity to 'take root'.
In Conclusion
Our postures are often the only clear indicators of the
forces acting upon our bodies. More importantly, they
illustrate our ability to cope with those forces.
A clear understanding of WHY muscular imbalance and
postural distortion occur is fundamental to every exercise
that you will ever prescribe.
With this knowledge of WHY, it becomes easier to see HOW,
WHEN and WHERE to apply exercises and stretches to your
clients in order to bring about functional and aesthetic
improvement.
When, and only when, you can do this you will truly be
applying personal to your training.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part 2 of this series will examine postural types and how
to assess them both statically and dynamically.
Part 3 will examine manual muscle testing and Range of
Motion assessments.
Part 4: Putting it all together. Programming for postural
improvement.
----------------------------------------------------
Dax Moy is a performance enhancement specialist and master
personal trainer with studios in and around London.
Voted one of the UK's leading fitness experts, Dax runs
the UK's only course designed for fitness professionals
where they can learn in-depth assessment skills for testing
and correcting Kinetic Chain Dysfunction.
For more information visit http://www.fitsystemtraining.com
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