CORE CONDITIONING AND FUNCTIONAL EXERCISE The principle behind core conditioning is that you are only as strong as your core is strong. Your neuromuscular system is set up in such a way as to protect the integrity of its most vital components - your back and your joints. From an evolutionary survival standpoint, dislocating your shoulder or rupturing a disc in your spine would be fatal. In my view, a trip to casualty is almost as much of an inconvenience. Imagine the scenario: A large, very strong bodybuilder goes shopping with his wife on a Saturday morning, loads up the car and drives home. Having parked up outside his house, he reaches into the boot of the car, lifts the bags... and puts his back out. Why? Well its really quite simple. Bodybuilding builds a very nice body if you happen to like that sort of thing. The problem is that in order to get the size they achieve in an individual muscle. You have to work the muscle in isolation. Our bodybuilder has taught his neuromuscular system that it is perfectly acceptable to contract his biceps without contracting the muscles that stabilize his lumber spine. And now the health clubs are perpetuating this anatomical dysfunction actually causing injuries by stocking their gyms with lovely, shiny bodybuilding machines and insisting that they are safer than free weights. What they are doing is setting their members up for injury. Machine training has its place, but that place is not in the training programme of the average person, because the average person lives in a multi-planar, dynamic, unstable world, the requirements of which bear no resemblance to the artificially stabilized, uni-planar, static environment provided by the average machine. Today, many athletic programs and professional sports teams use bodybuilding machines and protocol to condition athletes. When we consider that most bodybuilding exercises require neuromuscular isolation (working a single muscle), not integration (working multiple muscles and muscle groups) and virtually every sport or functional activity known to man requires high levels of neuromuscular integration, we are off to a bad start. Additionally, consider that most bodybuilding exercises are performed on machines, requiring no activation of postural muscles, minimal activation of stabilizer and neutralizer muscle functions, and certainly don’t require that you maintain your centre of gravity over your own base of support at all times; there’s not much need to activate stabilizers and postural muscles when sitting on a machine with a huge base of support that is bolted to the floor. What is Functional Exercise? Paul Chek at the C.H.E.K Institute in California writes the following: an exercise can only be considered functional if it fulfils the following criteria: Comparable reflex profile (Righting and Equilibrium reflexes) When moving across any object, stable (earth) or unstable (surf board), the body uses reflexes to maintain your upright posture. People with brain and spinal cord injuries often have to perform certain exercises to restore these reflex actions. Athletes needing particular reflex responses can use specific exercises to target the reflex profile they need to improve. Maintenance of your centre of gravity over your own base of support Whether standing at the sink brushing your teeth (Static postural component), or performing a walking lunge, squat or power clean (Dynamic postural component), failure to maintain your centre of gravity over your base of support results in falling and possibly injury. Generalized motor program compatibility The most functional exercises use movements that have a high carryover to work and sport. The best functional exercises have a relative timing profile similar to many other activities. For example, the squat exercise has a very similar relative timing profile to jumping, yet the leg press, knee extension and hamstring curl machine are very different, which is why they do very little if anything to improve vertical jump performance. Open/closed chain compatibility If you push against an object and you cannot move it, such as performing a chin-up, the chain (muscles/joints) is closed. When performing a lateral pull down you are overcoming the resistance and thus, the chain is open. Because the recruitment of muscles and movements of joints is task specific, your exercise selection must be equally specific to achieve a functional outcome. Improves relevant bio motor abilities Each exercise is composed of bio motor or life-movement, abilities. According to Bompa, bio motor abilities are strength, power, endurance, flexibility, coordination, balance, agility and speed. An exercise is most functional when the bio motor profile most closely approximates the ability lacking in the athlete’s body or when it most closely resembles the task being trained for. Isolation to integration Bodybuilding has plagued athletic training and rehabilitation with the urge to isolate muscles and make them BIGGER It should never be forgotten when trying to improve functional performance; the brain only knows movements, not muscles. To achieve optimal results with any isolation exercise, adequate time must be spent training the muscle to contribute to a functional movement pattern. At the massage and rehabilitation clinic, whilst we can design you a specific core conditioning and functional exercise programme and this forms a large part of any back care programme, every client that we design a workout programme for has an element of core conditioning built into their programme because we are committed to your functional (skeletal and neuromuscular) health. John Young is a corrective exercise specialist, and holistic health practitioner, who specialises in exercise rehabilitation, deep tissue massage therapy and manual lymphatic drainage massage therapy. John qualified as a practitioner in the UK. USA & Hungary John currently runs a massage and rehabilitation clinic in Putney south west London. He can be contacted at the clinic on the reception telephone number 02087857220 visit our website atmassageandrehabilitationclinic or email him on jypt@hotmail
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 07:49:36 +0000
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