This course is designed to change your concept of movement and stretching. Personal Trainers are often trying to correct faulty movement patterns or increase active range of movement. We will explore the concept of decreasing tension to allow movement to take place (this will encourage more fluidity to any movement and balance movement through a full kinetic chain) and rethink pnf stretching to use proprioception to increase range of motion.
Increasing effort or resistance (i.e. weight) will increase strength and muscle bulk. For functional movement training, flexibility and general physical health (i.e. the goal of most of your clients) this is not necessary. By decreasing tone more movement can be achieved. After this more resistance can be added if required to build strength.
Stretching comes in many forms from static to active with endless variations of both. Facilitated or partner stretching is within the scope of practice for many personal training certifications.
Pnf is one form of stretching. We will remodel the idea of the term proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. From the scientific literature four theoretical mechanisms have been proposed for the mechanism of action of pnf stretching: autogenic inhibition, reciprocal inhibition, stress relaxation, and the gate control theory. Nowhere is proprioception actually mentioned. Pnf has become either a contract-relax stretch or a contract-relax-antagonist-contract stretch. In this course we will use the idea of proprioception to increase range of motion by removing habitual tension. Stretching will return to where it is more useful – elongating shortened soft tissue.
We can then implement this new ability to move freely into a concept we call F.I.X.T. (Functional Integrated eXercises and Treatment.
The aim of F.I.X.T. is to reteach normal movement.
It is a combination of the body work and movement exercises taught here that gives a complete package of re-abilitating your clients and the way they move. It is designed to create effortless movement and as a foundation to speed up recovery from injury, correct chronic injuries and maximise the potential for effective training.
Chronic injury and poor recovery come from imbalances in strength and flexibility and alteration to normal movement. These are learned behaviours ingrained in the subconscious. They can’t be trained out with traditional exercises. Normal movement needs to be relearned. This takes away any chronic strain or tension habits and builds the strength and suppleness required for everyday movement and effective exercise training.
This is surprisingly quick and significant changes can be seen within one session.