Helping clients get more from exercise
As fitness professionals, we're all passionate about the importance of doing exercises properly. It can be a constant challenge trying to both educate and help clients move and perform better.
Generally speaking, there are two main issues that can occur with technique when performing exercises:
Generally speaking, there are two main issues that can occur with technique when performing exercises:
- Poor pattern pathway - This would be typified by the client not being able to perform the movement cleanly or very well. Within a personal training setting, the risk of this causing injury should be quite low as the personal trainer will be able to pick up the poor quality of movement and regress the exercise accordingly.
- Poor neuromuscular firing sequences - This is where the driving muscles aren't performing optimally, commonly observed in synergistic dominance whereby a synergist performs more of the workload than it is designed too. Another example sees synergists firing before the agonist. This problem has a much higher risk of leading towards injury as the problem isn't always visually apparent.
So, how can you combat against this? Even if you haven't done in depth courses on corrective exercises or muscle testing and strategies, there are still things you can do before large compound movements to wake up the appropriate drivers, stretch out tonic areas and get the most from the exercises:
- I'm not the biggest fan of isolated exercises because of the obscure ways of modern lifestyle, they are necessary. Before performing large compound exercises, stick a set or 2 of exercises specifically isolating the agonist. Considering the type of predominant fibre within the agonist will help you identify appropriate exercises to stimulate the correct response
- Embed stretches in between sets (possibly into recovery periods). Most of us fall down when it comes to stretches and what better way to do them than to use up recovery time. Focus on tonic areas within your client and specifically, areas that can distort the quality of the compound exercise. For example, tight hip flexors generally create poor squat patterns.
For more on how to get people moving properly, the Primal Pattern course covers screening and the advanced kettlebell course covers Bi-Functional Grouping which equips trainers with a complete training system to maximise training effect, transferable for weight loss, strength gains and hypertrophy.
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