"Athletic Body in Balance" is a book written by one of the lead thinkers in the sports medicine industry today, Gray Cook. He is the same man who came up with the Functional Movement Screen–a system of evaluating movement fundamentals on which he believes most technical movement patterns involved with sport build from.
I enjoyed this reading. It was practical and comprehensive in its style and approach of sharing information which, as the name implies, is focused on identifying significant imbalances that may or may not exist in the body through locomotion as well it goes into executing progression exercises to rectify them.
I recently started on a running program to help motivate me to run a little longer and smarter. The program was going really well, until I got to a particular point in the program that took up the intensity a little more and realised after the run that I had developed a bit of pain in my hamstring and hip area, a significant amount of pain at that with a sensation that I had not ever felt before.
Being trained to handle these sorts of situations and a believer in the techniques that I apply to my clients, I did a self-assessment and unveiled some little secrets my body had done a good job of hiding.
They are probably a result of pregnancy and child-birth or maybe even before that. My approach to fix it is based on Cook's interpretation of how we learn movement from the very beginning. Yes, I am talking about when we were babies and first squatted, held on to something to help pull us up progressing to a standing position in an effort to become more mobile.
Can you go into a full squat now like babies do? Odds are you can't but you did once upon a long time ago. So what happened? You stopped moving into that position as we all did once we were introduced to chairs with little or no need to squat like that anymore. As a result, the body forgot how to do it. The body very much operates on a "use it or lose it" basis (with a few exceptions of course � wink!).
In "Athletic Body in Balance," Cook delves into all these aspects of foundational motor programming and development. A baby doesn't just squat once. The action is repeated, improving in balance and strength every time.
Sometimes a baby stays in this position while exploring an object. My seven-year old son can still squat and I challenge him and my three-year old daughter to do it often enough so that the motor program embedded in their movement memory is not lost.
Active, highly competitive, healthy athletic people have experienced debilitating pain that has brought them to tears and unable to move with diagnoses ranging from severe muscle spasms to annular tears and immediate need for surgery. Healthy people! How is this possible, you may wonder? That motor program was forgotten and compensation patterns and imbalances were allowed to take over.
In some cases, the natural process of aging would have also contributed. These experiences are usually life-changing for the individual. The same outcome results in athletes. Cricketers having not learned proper bowling action, as we know happened to Brett Lee who eventually suffered a stress fracture to his spine. Rugby athletes who go to ground repeatedly must be able to execute these fundamental movements.
Any sport, without proper instruction on form and technique in skill, will likely experience a plateau in performance that, after a while can affect their physical ability to make needed adjustments to their technique.
Recognise that injury is a part of life, whether you are an athlete, weekend warrior and certainly if you are a couch potato. As it is the start of the New Year, make one of your resolutions to invest in your health earlier versus later. Finding the imbalances that likely exist front to back and left to right is one great way of doing that. Lose that extra weight, get a little fitter or compete in an event that you might enjoy.
Maybe obsess a little less about your weight or your diet when you already have it under control. Remember, it is about balance, in all aspects.
Vacations, staycations, gym memberships, eating healthy, doctor's visits, rehabilitation... there is a price tag attached to life but in particular reference to health, the earlier you deal with the issue, the smaller the price tag will be... significantly!
Asha De Freitas-Moseley is a certified athletic trainer with the National Athletic Trainers' Association of the USA. She has over 10 years of experience rehabilitating athletes and members of the active population from injury to full play. She can be reached at Pulse Performance Ltd., located at #17 Henry Pierre St., St. James. Tel: 221-2437.
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