If you are here because you are fed-up with your sore, achy back/hips/knees after working out then - you have come to the right place. As a personal Trainer and fitness coach it is my duty to free you from the resin of painful exercise.
So many people put their back out after a heavy lifting session or suffer back and knee pain after a good run / body-weight workout.
This is frustrating for anyone suffering because you are making the effort to be fit! Often the temptation to keep working out to keep being fit outweigh the bad back / sore hips / achy knees and the damage is never addressed. If you have been ignoring or pushing through the pain it may become worse over time and last a lot longer than it used to. Chronic pain from exercise might leave you wanting to throw in the towel altogether...
Before you do...
Start paying attention - real attention to your body when you are working out, is your spine in a braced neutral position?
With no organisation or failure to brace your spine optimally (in a neutral position, head aligned over shoulders, rib-cage over pelvis) it is almost impossible to drive power and force or even move effectively. Continually moving in this way results in a huge amount of unnecessary injuries as well as holding you back from completing your work out to its full ability.
This applies to daily life and general movement as well as when you hit your workout session.
It's not just the repeated risk of injury, you are putting your body through needless extra stress while it battles to complete the moves that you make improperly. You are also losing out on peak performance of power and missing out on strength in movements that require range of motion.
Signs that you have been moving incorrectly:
1. You have developed a pain that you are ignoring eg: My knee hurts when i run lately, i wonder what is wrong with it? This is your first indicator - pain and symptoms of injury. Swelling might indicate tissue overuse or strain but these are after-the-fact sign, the damage has already been done - wouldn't it be useful to have a tool that lets you know of movement dysfunction before any actual injury occurs?
2. The human animal is set up for survival. Your central nervous system controls the flow of sensory and mechanical information for your entire body. Pain and movement pathways in the brain stem are one and the same. Our movement pathways block the pain signal as it relegates pesky pains to background noise which you cant hear until you stop moving. It overrides the pain signal so that you can continue moving, exercising and training. It wont be until later - when you have stopped moving and that signal has stopped that the pain signal can now be heard.
3. Prioritising task completion over everything else. As long as the workout gets done there isn't too much concern for how it gets done. It’s like 1 or 0 mentality, task done or not, weight lifted or not etc. How do you keep from harming yourself? With a set of tools that enable you to predict potential problems before they become recognisable disorders.
Want to know what the tools are?
The bracing sequence (5 steps to perfect form) gives you the setup to begin using safe and dynamic movement every single time. You can use this sequence for all positions of movement - use it for every day movement like walking, sitting, cleaning, picking something up - yes we should be 'braced' for any and all movements not just in the gym!
I have made a video demonstration to walk you through step by step how to: Give it a watch, Give it a go, tell me that you found it useful and then keep using it - every day!
Make sure you come back here to tell me how much of a difference this post has made to your routine. A braced back and great form are the key to minimising injuries through movement.
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or send me a message: thehealthandconfidencecoach.com