Our upcoming blog series will focus on the missing links in training that we often identify with our patients. There are common themes with our patients who deal with chronic pain or experience injuries frequently with exercise. First off, Stability is by far the biggest missing link with most people. Joint stability acts as one of the pillars to the foundation of our bodies. Without proper stability, our strength and structural integrity will be compromised. Unfortunately, most people are stuck with an old mentality when it comes to training. No pain, no gain. The success of your work out should not be based on how exhausted you are but on how good you feel and how much closer you have gotten to your goal. Many fitness programs and organizations spend their time building explosive power and endurance in their members, but not enough time on developing the ability to control that explosive force. If you were to compare your body to a car, it would be like combining the engine of a Corvette with the transmission of a Civic. What you end up doing is creating a lot of power, but the weak “transmission” can’t sustain transmitting that power to the wheels. Eventually leading to the transmission failing, aka injury.
The hard part is that it can be hard to identify. This is because everything we see externally, can easily cover up what is going on internally. You can ‘cheat’ and power through movement patterns pulling from all the wrong places. Movements appear easy and effortless despite underlying dysfunctional patterns. You can only rely on these compensations for so long until the movements break down and dysfunction shows its ugly face.
Our series will address stability, mobility, eccentric control, and integrating the transverse plane. We will go deeper into each one of these concepts and show you ways to self-assess your movements.