What are your aches & pains trying to tell you?

Pain during exercise, aches after exercise, is it normal?

How to stop your injuries getting in the way of exercise

Corrective exercise is not something that you would think to google when looking for a personal trainer, but it should be. Especially if your injured, have injuries or just can’t get rid of that persistent niggle.

I’m going to talk you through the injury cycle in this blog to help you understand how they come about & why if you have an injury it’s important you see a specialist. That not only understands but can identify dysfunctions within the human movement system and how to correct them. Opposed to just always saying its “tight hamstrings” which often isn’t where the problem lies. It’s a signal something else isn’t doing it’s job properly.

Structural efficiency is the alignment of the body

First, we need to start with structural efficiency. This is the alignment of each part, each segment of the body must be in the correct alignment, which in turn allows the posture to be balanced in relation to your centre of gravity.  This is where a posture assessment would be carried out, to see visually if there are any imbalances

Functional efficiency is how efficiently your body moves

Next up is functional efficiency. Does your body move effectively & efficiently, now this might be hard to answer yourself.

Here’s an example of how I can best explain it :

Our bodies are very good at making life easier for themselves. Once we have a dysfunction, certain muscles will become dominant and leave others weaker, leaving you functioning below 100%.

In some cases, where you feel the pain, isn’t where the issue stems from. For example pain in the knee may be caused by tight hips.

You may only be aware of this when you demand more from your body. So, if we’re not moving enough or pushing ourself from time to time we may never even know we have a dysfunction. Until years down the line where the wear and tear catches up & becomes an issue.

Importance of moving correctly

This is why it’s important to have the body firing correctly, using the correct muscles in the correct sequence & at the right time with the appropriate amount of force. To perform tasks with the least amount of stress to the body (human movement system).

By having all of this in place you will really have the edge and be able to take your performance to the next level without any set backs.

This the cumulative injury cycle, you can see if you are currently in the cycle & where you are.

At this point it starts to really get interesting & exciting for me as a specialist, it is far more personal & individual on a case by case experience.

If you want to learn more or have a dysfunction, injury or niggle that isn’t just going away stretch after stretch then get in touch. Reference this blog  “Corrective exercise”  for your free posture & movement assessment, only otherwise available to Optimum Performance clients.