Getting fit

Feb 16 2008 by Hannah Davies, The Journal

Why does our body stop working?

ON our way to enhancing our health and performance we want many things to happen. Can we put together exercise programmes and approaches that, make us fitter, stronger, faster, leaner, increase our energy levels, and prevent illness and disease? Whatever the target, an understanding of functional anatomy can be critical for success.

Through a deeper understanding of the integrated nature of our bodies we can achieve greater gains from training, improve technique, benefit from freedom of movement throughout the day and avoid injury. For the next few months this column will investigate functional anatomy and encourage the critical thinking that will enable us to make positive decisions and actions for progress. Here are a few topics that will be covered:

The Connective Tissue Web

When any part of the body moves, the whole body responds. Being mindful of this should have a great influence on the way we train. The connective tissue supports and connects various systems in our body. Healthy connective tissue will impact on our structure, movement, organ health and cardiovascular efficiency.

In a world of occupations and lifestyles that are shutting down our systems and ability to move freely, the connective tissue suffers, leading to aches pains, stiffness, joint problems and even deteriorated eye sight, reproductive difficulties and digestive dysfunction.

Weak Pelvis; Tight Hamstrings

From my experience when working with predominantly sedentary clients, a common symptom is tight hamstrings. What has caused this tightness? Typically it is the sitting position that may ‘shorten’ the muscle and the treatment is stretching, stretching and more stretching. Yet this is rarely effective on it’s own, but why?

Inactivity will lead to a reduction in stability at the pelvis. If something is instable, the tendency is to tighten the grip or hold. No amount of hamstring stretches will improve flexibility, posture or strength until stability is restored in the pelvis.

What Caused the Knee Injury?

Knee injuries are unfortunately common. Discounting those caused by direct trauma, why is it that the injury often reoccurs and may plague us for the rest of our life? Understandably we are often preoccupied with what’s going on at the site of pain (knee). However, success may come from stepping back.

As human movement is far from isolated, to find the answers for the knee we need to look at the function of the hip and ankle at least. It could be a weakness, tightness or idiosyncrasy here that leads to problems for the knee: Poor alignment, asymmetry, load and force. Investigating functional anatomy will hopefully provide a greater appreciation of how the body is linked.

Functional Trainer provides personal training and the BioSignature Technique for a holistic approach to health and performance, 07792 761324, or jackwwalton@ hotmail.com