Outside the Box Fitness - Edmonton

Good Movement is Foundational

Whether your goal is to lean out by getting regular aerobic exercise and add muscle definition by lifting weights, or you just want to get more exercise to improve how you feel; good movement is essential.

Good mobility requires motor control. Motor control is the ability to coordinate movement of all joints involved, in a pattern. As we age (this begins to happen way before middle age - think of how easily a four-year old navigates the monkey bar; and if they don’t continue to do it, they can no longer use that playground equipment only a few years later) we lose muscle strength, and the capacity to produce power. It isn’t only because we lose muscle mass at a rate of 5% every decade if we don’t properly and progressively resistance train, but also because the brain loses its ability to talk to the muscles in a pattern-motor neuron death (this is called neuromuscular function). When the function deteriorates, the muscle shrinks away. This is why people lose balance and coordination. Continue to lose this control, and the power needed to push oneself out of a chair also diminishes. Aging without taking care of movement with proper, intense exercise causes a person to be both weak and metabolically inefficient.

Physiology of the human body works on a joint by joint approach. Starting from the foot, there is a system of stability and mobility throughout the kinetic chain. If one joint loses its natural job, the joint above and below will begin to compensate. A sedentary lifestyle, long hours sitting or standing, injury, or activities like jogging and cycling perpetuate poor movement.

A person who takes their natural posture to exercise, typically moves from three centers: The hip flexors, spinal erectors, and neck and upper traps. If a person lifts weights without starting with stability in neutral; then adaptations of strength of these abherrant patterns is caused. Best case scenario is muscle tightness and poor muscle and strength development. Worst case is injury.

It’s a simple as this: if your hips lose stability and/or mobility, you get knee pain. If your foot loses stability and your ankle loses mobility (perhaps because of the above) you get knee pain. If you lose mobility in your t-spine, or lack a good stable and mobile shoulder complex- you get shoulder, neck, and/or lower back pain. (Credit: Mike Boyle, Joint by Joint approach)

Breathing mechanics are crucial to good mobility. Breathing for exchange of gases, and not from all breathing centers will cause mobility restrictions; especially in the shoulders and neck. (Credit: Dean Somerset) Often a person with instability will hold their breath during exercise, to try to create a false stability. This is counter- productive. There is a time for creating intra-abdominal pressure by using Valsalva breathing in lifting heavier loads, but a person must first build robustness of the spine. Poor breathing mechanics will not allow your body to move into full range of motion in exercise. Muscle guarding will occur. That will not produce good results.

Not everyone needs to create more mobility. In fact, those with more natural mobility often end up taxing their joints and connective tissue. They need more stability. This is the value of an assessment; to determine how your body moves, what your natural mobility is, whether you have a bias towards flexion or extension, whether you need more mobility or more stability, what progression level to begin with in an exercise, etc.

The purpose of exercise should be to help your body to move freely, to allow you to do regular tasks with ease, and to be more metabolically efficient. Prehab (exercising with quality of movement) is much more favourable than rehab (fixing the movement issues that we have created from quantity of movement without regard to principles of stability and mobility.

In the photos ...
Top: Single leg deadlift - Balance and coordination come from a balance in strength.
Middle: Lunge with a rotation - Anterior core strength so that the lumbar spine is supported. Good range of motion in the hip comes from better hip extension strength. Good for a warm up to restore upper back and hip mobility/stability.
Bottom: Upward dog - Proper back extension is created with shoulder and anterior core stability. It's the t-spine that does the majority of the extension, not the lower back. Breathing mechanics, stability, and (perhaps) mobility are needed to restore good movement.

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