One of the most common terms used in the fitness industry today is functional training. However, there seems to be about a million definitions used to explain what functional training is actually all about.

I like to explain it by using the definition of the word functional. Google the word and the part that applies to training is, “of or having a special activity, purpose, or task; relating to the way in which something works or operates. There are important functional differences between left and right brain”

When it come to training I will refer to the part that says, ” the way in which something works or operates “. This implies that you have to know how something operates before you can say you are doing something functional with it.

This is where an understanding of the planes of motion will help with your program design and implementation. We move in different planes; frontal, transverse and sagittal. These three terms are used a lot when talking about functional exercises and I know they can cause confusion. However, once you understand them, it becomes an easy way to communicate how you move or where motion occurs. So, I put together a couple videos. Below I explain those planes in particular and next week I’ll explain how planes can be used to correct alignment when doing common rotator cuff exercises

A few weeks ago, we published a video talking about a single leg balance progression you can work on to help improve your balance. This week we are continuing the balance theme. In this weeks video we look at manipulating vision to increase the difficulty of your single leg balance progression.

We use our vision for approximately 70 percent of our total body balance and when we manipulate the use of our eyes, the single leg progression begins to get quite a bit tougher. Think of when you’re walking around in a dark room. There are a few reasons why. The first being somewhat obvious in that we don’t want to bang into anything. The second is a bit less obvious, and that is, we’re off balance!! It’s not something that is apparent to us in the moment because our bodies go on auto pilot and adapt to the change in the environment. We walk slower, we stick our hands out to feel for objects, and walk with a wider base of support.
Give these exercises a try and the next time the power goes out at home, you’ll be more than prepared to handle the conditions.

About the Author:  Eric Noyes BHSc (Kin), CSEP-CPT

Eric is  Kinesiology Graduate from The University of Ontario and holds his Training Certification with the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology.  He has been training general population and sport specific clients at Body Fit since 2013 and is currently the Lead Trainer.  He can be reached at eric@bodyfit.ca for advice and consultation.

In part 1 of this 2 part series, I posted a video where I demonstrated two standard tests. They were the Rhomberg Test and Fukuda Step Test. We use these simple tests as screens for our “senior” populations. In addition to those two tests, we also use the Functional Reach Test and the Timed Up and Go.

All four tests challenge different the components of balance; Vision, Proprioception and Vestibular Sense in both dynamic and static environments. Once we have completed these tests we are provided with enough information to do the following:

• Refer out. If the results of these tests fall outside the “normal” range, we obligate ourselves to seek additional information from a medical professional before we pursue anything further.
• Determine a corrective course of action. Depending on the results of each individual’s test, we can narrow the scope of available options that will work best to help improve test results.
• Establish an objective baseline. Because these tests are objective and repeatable, we can re-test quickly and easily to determine if our course of corrective action is working or not.

Once you have watched the video below, I encourage you to take the tests yourself. If you find yourself having trouble with one or more, contact us for a free consultation. We have several options that can help.

In this week’s video, it’s all about releasing those tight muscles, particularly around the shoulders/neck. In North America, people spend far too much time in a seated and “hunched” over position. Spending too much time in this “hunched” position causes the muscles of the neck as well as around the shoulder to become extremely tight and restricted.

One of the best tools you can keep in your “tool box” is a lacrosse ball. A simple, yet extremely effective tool when utilized correctly. The ball is used to loosen-up the fascia that surrounds our muscles. Tight fascia is the tissue that restricts our movement and gives us the perceived feeling of “knots” in our muscles. Utilizing the lacrosse ball to perform self-myofascial release is a great way to loosen-up those restricted muscles.

About the Author:  Eric Noyes BHSc (Kin), CSEP-CPT

Eric is  Kinesiology Graduate from The University of Ontario and holds his Training Certification with the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology.  He has been training general population and sport specific clients at Body Fit since 2013 and is currently the Lead Trainer.  He can be reached at eric@bodyfit.ca for advice and consultation.

Last week Eric put together a great video about balance training and how to progress it. If you missed it, you can find it here.

Keeping with the balance theme, today I wanted to show you two of the simple screening tests we do when we assess our senior population. That said, they don’t always apply to seniors and everyone can try them.

Generally speaking, a screen will identify a certain area that needs further consideration. That is what these screens are designed to do. They are NOT diagnostic tools. So, if you don’t do well, it doesn’t mean you need to see a Doctor right away or think about moving to assisted living!

Balance is a skill that you can practice, however, as we get older there are other systems in our bodies that become slower and less effective that will play a role in our ability to maintain our balance. The tests I show you in the video below are designed to challenge those systems separately so we can identify a possible reason behind a balance issue and a better more direct approach to improving it.

Balance training is something a lot of people overlook while they’re at the gym. It is a skill we take for granted until we realize that we’ve lost it. It isn’t until then that we actually appreciate how important balance is to activities of daily living.

As we get older, our balance diminishes. It’s not just you, it’s everybody. That’s just the way the body works. Balance can be viewed through the lens of – use it or lose it. Generally, as we get older, our need to work on balance activities becomes increasingly important.

The take-home point here is to make sure you work on your balance because it doesn’t just hang around forever for when you do need it. Use it now and use it often.

The video below offers some suggestions on how to integrate balance training into your work out. Enjoy!

About the Author:  Eric Noyes BHSc (Kin), CSEP-CPT

Eric is  Kinesiology Graduate from The University of Ontario and holds his Training Certification with the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology.  He has been training general population and sport specific clients at Body Fit since 2013 and is currently the Lead Trainer.  He can be reached at eric@bodyfit.ca for advice and consultation.

Generally speaking, if you are a healthy individual, you should be able to touch your toes.  Yet, there are a lot of people that can’t.  Most of the time they throw their hamstrings under the bus.  However tight hamstrings are not always the case.  Tissue extensibility dysfunction (TED) or the inability for the fibers that make up muscle and tendon to glide smoothly over one another, is a common diagnosis.

We have assessed hundreds of people over the years and until recently, we would prescribe the same thing..static and some forms of dynamic stretching of the hamstrings.  I wish I knew then what I know now.  Stiffness in general isn’t simply stiffness; it’s there for a reason.  Your body is telling you something.  In our experience, much of the time this tension is protective in nature.  In simple terms, muscle only does what it is told to do by our brains/nervous system.  If our brain detects risk it can signal the muscle around a joint to tighten and restrict range of motion to prevent or reduce the risk of injury to that area.

Bennet et al (2009) conducted a study on a patient that was about to undergo knee replacement surgery.  They tested range of motion both before and after sedation with a neural block.  Post sedation, passive flexion increased an average of 16.4 degrees, while passive extension increased an average of 3.0 degrees for a total increase if 19.4 degrees, without altering the tissues themselves.

Big deal eh?  Well yeah, it is.

TMR (Total Motion Release) is a way to listen to those quiet whispers that our body is communicating.  The International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy published a recent study (Baker RT et al 2015) demonstrating how TMR was used to “clean-up” the dysfunctional toe touch and of a 27 year old with chronic bilateral pain and tightness in her hamstrings that was diagnosed as TED….without any stretching.  Additionally, she was pain free after her second week of treatment!

So, if you are generally healthy, can’t touch your toes, suffer from chronic hamstring tightness or pain and have tried everything from massage to pain pills without any luck, checkout the video below.  Give it a try and let me know if it helps.

To moving better!

About the author:

Andy Luukkonen is the owner of Body Fit Health Club.  He holds an honors degree in Physical and Health Education from the University of Toronto, is Level 2 Certified by Functional Movement Systems and is a Certified Practitioner of Total Motion Release.  For more information or to book a Functional Movement Evaluation call 905-852-6175

This post comes as a result of me attending a physical testing session that my youngest son participated in this week.  He plays club volleyball and I always bring the best volleyball ankle braces for my kid because it’s  important he’s always protected   participate in a strength and conditioning component at a training facility of the clubs choosing.  The first session was for testing/assessing.

The strength and conditioning component is supposed to be two fold.  It’s supposed strengthen and condition my son to prevent or reduce the risk of injury and secondly it’s a team building thing, I tried getting the advise from a Fredericksburg Chiropractor in order to do things the best way possible.  The assessment should be designed to identify very specific things about a person that will guide you in your programming for that specific individual, visit company website for our chiropractors services.  Things they should be doing and things they shouldn’t be doing.  Anyway, after the testing session I left somewhat frustrated, and risking of suffer injury in treatments, and is important that you can find the legal defense for this, which you can contact here.  I didn’t like what I saw and I’m just going to leave it at that.  Needless to say, I’m very proud of what we do at Body Fit and confirmed that we are way ahead of the curve when it comes to our assessment protocol.

There was one thing that jumped out at me during their “assessment” that they missed but can help pretty much everyone.  Keep in mind that these kids are young.  12 and 13 years old and in pretty good shape.  That said, some can bend and twist like Gumby.  But more like a drunk Gumby playing twister.  In other words they have very little muscular control of their movements but have the ability to contort and cheat themselves through a movement without pain.

I’m sure you have seen it before.  Watch little kids doing gymnastics and you wonder how they don’t snap.  Well, over time that takes it’s toll.  Most people that have that ability have been dubbed “double jointed”.  They have very elastic muscles and tendons which permit them to bend joints beyond their “normal” range of motion which ultimately puts a lot of stress of the ligaments and joint capsules.  It’s referred to as hypermobility or joint laxity and excessive hypermobility is something that a strength coach should be assessing and watching.  It’s much more prevalent in children than in adults and more in women than in men.  In my experience, many of these individuals will eventually complain of “tightness” and feeling sore around the joints.

Coaches that don’t test for this condition or aren’t aware of it will usually just tell the person to stretch.  This is common in the shoulders and the hips.  Every time they stretch more they just shove the ball of the joint further into the capsule making the joint itself looser.  Unfortunately, stretching actually provides temporary relief.  It’s kind of like scratching your skin when you get poison ivy.  Scratching feels good but makes the problem much worse.

So, how do you avoid this problem in the first place?  You test for it.  There are a couple tests out there and we use the Beighton laxity test.  The other one that is used is called the 10-point hospital Del Mar criteria.  If a person scores high, then they are considered to be “hypermobile”.  If that’s you, then you need to understand what range of motion you should go to rather than what you can get to.  More importantly, it’s about being able to control that range by strengthening the muscles around the joints and learning when you are resting or relying on passive structures (ligaments and capsules) for stability rather than the active structures (muscles).

The video below is a quick example of the Beighton test.  The young man in the video is my son Raymond (not the son that was involved in the testing mentioned above) and based on the results of the test, he would be considered hypermobile.  Therefore his program has a focus on joint stability and motor control.  Give the test a try and see how you score.  Each thumb is worth a point, each finger is a point, each elbow is a point, each knee is a point and the straight leg toe touch is another point making the score out of 9.  We consider a score of 5 or higher to be in the cautious zone.  We need to be aware of it and take it into consideration while programming and cuing.  If you score 5 or higher and aren’t sure what to do, come see us and we’d be happy to give you some advice;)