Corrective exercises have become a popular training tool for many personal trainers in recent years, but do they work?

The corrective exercises are often found in programs in the movement preparation part of the workout, which I like to jokingly say is just a fancy way of saying the warm up. In fact it is a specific warm up, one that literally is intended to get your body prepared for movement. Some of the corrective exercises are basic stretches and activation exercises that manual therapists (I use the term manual therapist to refer to any of athletic therapist, chiropractor, massage therapist, osteopath, or physical therapist) have been using for years. Others are more integrated, born of functional training philosophies, such as the Functional Movement Screen.

I am actually a big fan of corrective exercises. Every client I see who has some movement dysfunction or limitation does them. In other words, all of my clients do them.

But do they work? It depends.

I believe there are three major factors that determine their effectiveness:

1. Are you using an appropriate corrective exercise? I hope this is a widespread yes, but alas I don’t think it is. I won’t go too negative here, but if you are a trainer please honour yourself, your profession, and your clients by attending conferences, reading books and articles, and discussing training with other professionals.

To get back on topic, the reason continuing education is so important for trainers, is that sometimes great new ideas arise that debunk old ideas. When this happens, it’s nice to be in the know. I encountered an example of this when I saw a trainer using the wrong corrective exercise recently. The trainer asked me if there was a small rubber ball at the gym that they could use to put between their client’s knees during a leg press to keep them from caving in (I’m not a fan of the leg press, but kept that to myself). I suggested that instead of the ball between the knees, that a band around the knees was a much more appropriate correction. The correction she was about to use would have had the opposite effect that she was looking for: The muscles that squeeze the ball are the same ones that collapse the knees. Conversely, the band around the knees will temporarily force the knees further into collapse, but the body will sense that this new position is wrong and will send a message to resist the band – or move the knees apart. This super cool corrective exercise approach is called RNT or reactive neuromuscular training.

2. Are you coaching the exercise? I’m going to be blunt here: As an industry, trainers and manual therapists are failing at coaching and cueing exercise. Very often when I introduce a corrective exercise, the client tells me that they know how to do them. Depending on my mood that day, I either go ahead and demonstrate it anyhow, or I try to contain my smile and ask them to show me. More often than not, what they show me is a very poor version of the exercise.

I think there are a few reasons for this:

• The manual therapist only spends 5 minutes demonstrating and coaching 5 to 10 exercises and then provides a one-pager featuring microscopic stick drawings of each exercise.
• People need to be coached through an exercise more than once to really get it, but often they only get one shot;
• People pick up exercises from magazines or websites and don’t quite catch the nuance of what they are doing;
• People attend bootcamps where the ratio of instructor to student is 50:1, so there is no time for proper coaching.

I’m sure there are more reasons. It’s really a big problem. Without proper cueing and instruction, it’s entirely possible that the exercise given to correct a dysfunctional movement will encourage that dysfunctional movement if done poorly. One exercise where I see this all the time is the bird dog. At least half of the clients I give bird dogs to tell me that they know how to do them. Fewer than 5% actually know how to do them. The purpose of a bird dog is to improve rotary core stability, to work on glute strength, and to work on lat strength. Yet more often than not, the bird dogs I see involve a lot of flailing. Now I’m not a linguist, but I’m pretty sure that there is no root commonality between the words flailing and stability. For those reading this who think they know how to do a bird dog, here’ s a video of how it should look. Note the distinct lack of flailing.

3. Is your client feeling the corrective exercise where they should? Let’s assume that you picked the right exercise, and you coached it properly. Does that guarantee it will be felt where it should? Absolutely not! The human body is an incredibly complex system with built-in redundancy. Virtually every movement you can do with the body has a primary muscle and at least one backup. The backup, is like the spare tire in your car: It is there when you need it, but it isn’t as good as the primary muscle. But unlike the spare tire, it’s not always easy to turn off the backup muscle and give control back to the main muscle. This is a common problem with corrective exercises. Your client may do it perfectly, but the backup muscle won’t let go. In this case, the corrective exercise is actually reinforcing the poor movement.

In some cases you can see it, but not always. Truthfully the most effective way to know if your client’s body is doing the exercise correctly is to ask.
“Where do you feel this?”
I find this is a particularly big problem with corrective exercises for the hips and shoulders.I shot a video that explains this and provides a few examples:

The key is that you have to understand what the exercise is supposed to be targeting. If it is not hitting that area as you would expect, try a couple of different ways to position it and to cue it. If that still doesn’t work, try a different exercise.

Elsbeth Vaino is a personal trainer in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Now that we have some snow up here, I thought it would be appropriate to bring this snow shoveling article out to remind everyone that shoveling is actually hard physical work, that really should be done after a warmup, and with some caution about form.

Did you know there is an increase in cardiac incidents following snowfalls?

It turns out that shoveling is both frustrating and dangerous.  This is likely due to otherwise sedentary people heading out and suddenly doing intense exertion – that snow can be heavy!

And did you also know that there is an increase in back injuries following snow storms? 

When I heard this, I assumed it was due to the excessive bending.  Interestingly, it might actually be related to the heart incidents.  Or so goes the theory presented by Dr. Stuart McGill, spinal biomechanist at the University of Waterloo:  your back’s greatest protection is the core muscles that brace it, but some of those muscles – notably the obliques – are also involved in breathing.  Because of that, there is a point just after you finish exhaling when these muscles are relaxed.  And when those muscles are relaxed, they are not able to do their other job – supporting your back.  So if you happen to lift a really heavy shovel-full at the end of your exhale – maybe your back is bent and twisted which happens frequently when shoveling – your back is going to take the full load with no support.  And that is how back injuries can happen.

As it turns out, you can turn this crisis into an opportunity (“cropportunity!” as Homer would say).  Why not turn your shoveling “job” into a safe and fun workout?  Yes, I did say fun and workout in the same breath. Not convinced? Think of it this way:  Shovel your driveway my way you’ll be less likely to hurt yourself, and you’ll be more fit when you’re done. 

So what kind of workout can you get shoveling?  Think of it as a two-part workout:  an arm plus core workout and a leg workout. 

Warm-up first!

Before heading out, start with a warm-up in the house.  It doesn’t have to be long, but make sure you get some movement in your legs, your hips, and thoracic spine area. I have two warmup options for you, each one takes between 5 and 10 minutes:

The ski dynamic warmup. It’s true that snow shoveling is not skiing. Not even close! But a good ski warmup will serve you well for snow shoveling. Here’s the one I recommend:

Or, try this general warmup.

The snow shoveling workout

There are two parts to the shoveling video, the Lift and Toss and the Shovel Scoop Interval. Use each as appropriate, depending on the type of snow and length of driveway. Read below the segment below the video for a little extra guidance.

The Lift and Toss:

Try 10 reps on one side and then 10 on the other and then take a little break.  As it says in the video – don’t twist your back, and don’t forget to engage that core to prevent the relaxed breathing muscles from compromising your back!

Shovel Scoop Intervals:

With these, don’t run through the Shovel Scoop Intervals unless you are:
- wearing boots with a great grip;
- you know there’s no ice underneath;
- You know there is nothing the shovel will catch on; and
- you are in excellent physical condition.

There is no shame in walking to push the scoop shovel! It is still a good workout. Once you unload the snow, walk back to the starting point so that you have the energy to do another line. If you have to unload the shovel to the side, remember the straight back lesson from the Lift and Toss, and as much as possible, alternate sides. If you are still breathing heavily when you get back for another line, rest a bit longer. As the winter progresses, you should find that you need less rest. But for the first few snowfalls, don’t be the hero – respect both your body and the snow.

Elsbeth Vaino is a personal trainer in Ottawa (Hintonburg). Visit www.customstrength.com for information about hiring her for your fitness and sports performance needs.

…you probably have anterior pelvic tilt (APT). That is, your butt probably sticks out a bit. In some cases, the upside may be that it’ll make your butt look great. Although it doesn’t always look good…

Looks aside, for many people, it can cause or contribute to low back pain, either on a regular basis, or while trying to perform ab exercises. Raise your hand if you yourself or any of your clients have complained that they feel planks in their low back more than in their abs. Read more…

If you’ve read my stuff before, then you know that I am, well, a big geek. I think I probably took fitness geek to a whole new level with my bench press assessment article, talking about the work value of a bench press based on arm span. I think this article will further raise the bar on geek in the fitness industry.

This article is about what typical problem areas I see based on the Functional Movement Screen (FMS for those who like to keep things short) assessments that I perform. Not familiar with the FMS? Check out functionalmovement.com, or read on for a brief overview. Then follow the article to see an overview of the results I’ve seen in terms of what functional movements tend to cause the most problems, and how the results are different based on gender and whether someone is an athlete.

Lastly, I’ll share my take on what this should mean for your training (or programming for trainers) if you do not have access to the FMS or other assessment options to help guide you.
Read more…

Low back pain is a very common problem, and is a topic that comes up often when I talk with, well people. I have written a couple of articles about this in previous years, but I want to address it again, this time with a more practical approach. I realized recently that I have developed a bit of a template for clients who have low back pain, or who have a history of low back pain. The program for each person is different, but there are six exercises that I include for almost everyone who talks about their back when I first meet them. I am going to share these 6 exercises for low back health with you.

Before I begin though, I must point out the following: If daily living causes you low back pain, I strongly suggest that you look to a health care practitioner as your primary source of guidance for your back health. I won’t suggest what type of professional you see, just that someone who is a doctor, osteopath, physical therapist, chiropractor, athletic therapist, or massage therapist sees and hopefully provides some treatment for your back.

With that said, I’m going to share the 6 exercises that I have found to be most important and effective for helping people improve their low back health. Strangely I feel a need to qualify that again. I think that is because it makes me uncomfortable suggesting that I can help “cure back pain” when I am not a health care professional. I’m a trainer. And before I was a trainer, I was an engineer; not a doctor or a physical therapist. But here’s the thing: I help people’s low back pain by avoiding their back pain, not by working on it. Read more…

This is the first entry in my new blog-series: My Favourite Training Tools (For my American readers, please excuse the ‘u’ in favourite. It’s a Canadian thing). There are probably thousands of tools out there for fitness. Some are ridiculous fly-by-night items (I can’t help but think of the Saturday Night Live commercial spoof of the Shaker Weight) while some have stood the test of time for hundreds of years (kettlebells). In each entry in this blog series, I’ll talk about one of my 10 favourite tools, in somewhat random order.

Today’s entry features the Functional Movement Screen (FMS). This makes my list even though it does nothing to get you strong. That’s because it is an assessment tool. I love this tool because it helps me to see where people have problems with the fundamental way that they move, and then that helps me to create a great training program for them that will not only get them “faster, higher, stronger”, but will also help fix movement dysfunction that they have developed in life. Read more…

I had an article published in Ski Pro Magazine this fall, Reducing the Risk of Low Back Pain. For those of you who are skiers but not instructors in Canada, here is the link to the online version of the magazine:

Reducing the Risk of Low Back Pain.

The article is on pages 30 and 31, or you can get to it by typing “low back’ into the search field.

This article was written after I had the pleasure of attending a two-day seminar with Dr. Shirley Sahrmann, author of Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes. Throughout the course, and then on the eight hour drive home, I had a lot of opportunity to really think about what I learned and its relevance. This article presents a combination of what I learned from Dr. Sahrmann, as well as some of the thoughts it provoked.

I don’t care how much you don’t move
This was a statement she made repeatedly throughout the course, and reflects the premise that it is usually the place that moves too much that is the problem. This is in keeping with her belief of exercise instead of manual therapy as the best approach for addressing movement disorders, because manual therapy typically addresses shortness.
Read more…

A good trainer will work to not only make you stronger, more fit, and less squishy, but also to help improve your overall movement and to contribute to healthy joints and tissues. We do this by working on symmetry, and focusing on stability and mobility in the right places. But typically, the time you spend working out is just not enough to counteract the habits we all have throughout the “other 23 hours of the day”.

What habits am I talking about? The way we stand, sit, walk, sleep, watch tv, and drive all impact our bodies. We all have habits that we do every day. Many of them seem to be so minute, and yet we do them so much that in fact we do them in huge volumes. That adds up and can have a big impact on our ability to move well. Do you know what yours are?
Read more…

I have a feeling there may be a lot of golfers out there. And I suspect just a few of them (read: most) are interested in improving theirs swing. And another small subset (read: large) are addicted to everything to do with golf. And that these people may just be interested to get a complete assessment of their swing, of the way they move without a golf club in their hand, and of the correlation between the limitations in the way they move and the problems they are having with their swing. And hopefully they will also be keen to do the few corrective exercises that will help them to improve their movement and their swing. I would think that those who don’t play as much as they want to because their back gets sore from a round of golf would be particularly keen on this.

I recently did a Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) assessment on a golfer friend of mine down in Massachusetts who gets up at 430 am every day to fit 9 holes in before work. Despite that incredible dedication to this game (addict?), he has struggled with low back pain of late, and his game has also been suffering somewhat. Take a look at what we found out from his assessment:
Read more…