All the Right Moves

February 2, 2014

In a previous article I briefly mentioned our ‘primal movement’ of squatting and while as a child we earn our own mobility with time, strength, and balance.  What I did not really dive into was how our muscles learn these movements.  And truly to force a bunch of medical data into a simple article is just impossible.

What I can tell you is that proper movement (or movement patterns) are a learned behavior.

Movement patterns are just that, the way your body moves.  And for many people the patterns that your body currently experiences are less than ideal… dysfunctional, in fact.   Or in other words, you move in a manner that will potentially or create risk to your body.  Eventual joint or muscle damage will develop due to mechanical disadvantage, joint impingement, or muscular imbalances where you may  end up injured by strain, separation, tear or rupture.  All are potential injuries that can be stopped with the “reset” button or by re-training your neural pathways…how the body moves.

F.I.T. Human Performance is based on all the right moves and retraining the brain to send the correct signals to teach your body the proper mechanics that allow your body to move in the best and safest possible manner.  We train smart, but hard.

When we continue to sit incorrectly, bend poorly, or use the wrong muscles to do movement or exercise, we are developing bad pathways for our brain to send signals to do those moves.  The ‘neural pathways’ or movement patterns may be putting your body at a disadvantage and at risk for potential future injury.  These behaviors are circumstantial, in most cases, due to lifestyle and habit. For example,  sitting for prolonged periods of time ordinarily creates low back discomfort due to increased hip flexion dominance,  a muscular imbalance we correct here all the time.  Protracted shoulder girdle is another,  this is a symptom of hands inside the sagittal plane of the shoulders, like typing or hands on a keyboard.  Again, at F.I.T. we re-train the movement patterns.

IF the movement patterns are incorrect, and you know if they are due to pain or the lack of movement at a joint, then strength training on top of these moves is a mistake.  We call that adding fitness to dysfunction and making your bad moves stronger (i.e. worse).  The neural patterns are bad and you’re asking your brain to get better at deciding the wrong moves all the time.   Let me use an example:

Building new neural pathways by going off the beaten path

This analogy might explain how new pathways can be formed. You live in the woods, and everyday you take the same few paths to get the things you need to sustain yourself. You never stray from those paths at all. Then one day as you walk down your normal path – heavily worn from years of use – down to the river, you notice a little building way off the trail. You think wow I’d like to check that out, but you’ve never been off the trail. However, you decide to check it out. You leave the worn path that you were on to go to ground that you’ve never stepped foot on before. You approach the door of the building; then, you walk inside and notice that there is a large group of books on the subject of building log cabins. You are looking around the room and notice a note on a table that says you are welcome to use the place anytime you want, but please never take the books from the building. So you begin to come and go everyday to read.  As you come and go, you begin to develop two fresh paths. When you walk to the cabin everyday, these fresh paths begin to become worn and easily noticed. Even though the paths never become as ingrained and worn as your original paths, they are still distinct and worn. This is similar to how neuroplasticity occurs in our brains as we learn something new. The more we repeat something and use that portion of the brain in a focused way, new neural pathways develop in your brain.

When you come train with me at F.I.T. Human Performance we begin with an FMS (Functional Movement Systems) assessment to determine the groundwork to developing your movement patterns from the ground up.  My job is to teach you all the right moves.  Safe, effective, and fun… another way to look at Functional Individualized Training.

Call today, (832)813-8010

In good health

Bob

“Everything that we do at the Indianapolis Colts is built on a Functional Movement Screen base – it’s the foundation of our program.” – Jon Torine, Strength and Conditioning Coach, Indianapolis Colts, NFL