Nutritional ‘No-how” Misleading Labels

June 8th, 2011

Grocery shopping for healthy foods can be a real treasure hunt. This is particularly true when it comes to packaged items and their misleading labels. We often times assume that many of the items we pick up at the grocery store labeled “whole grains” or “reduced fat” are healthy. For example, a carton of 1% milk makes us think we’re doing the right thing for ourselves, and our families, but truth be known that 1% milk in reality is 18% fat by calories. Ouch! The dairy industry marks it’s product by volume, not actual calories. This is also true of the meat industry. A package of 93% lean ground beef, for example, is actually 45% fat by calories, (Nutrition for Professional, Jane Penz PhD 2008). Shocking, I know….

It seems the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) labeling guidelines allow meat and poultry products, as well as dairy, to label fat content by volume, or weight, rather than actual calories per portion. We assume it is by portion. Also, by definition The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines for “low fat” is “a product containing less than 3 grams of fat.” This allows 2% fat milk, which actually contains 36% fat, to be labeled “low fat”. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided in 1998 to disallow this claim. Now the new claim is “reduced- fat.” This still leaves our 1% milk to be “low fat”, with a whopping 18% fat content.

Other labels to be on the-look out-for are “fat free” and “calorie free.” Items claiming to be “calorie free” can actually contain up to 5 calories per serving, according to labeling laws; and, “fat free” is even more misleading. An item containing less than 1/2 gram of fat per serving can be called “non-fat.” This becomes a BIG problem when we believe such claims and end up eating the way more than the actual serving size listed. Other shockers are: Promise fat-free is 100% fat and Pam cooking spray contains 1638 calories, based upon actual spraying time and sprays per can – not even close to calorie free.

Other grocery store label culprits are “whole grains.” There are no rules regarding the amount of actual “whole grain” in any product. There could actually be very little in the product. You are best off actually examining the list of ingredients on the item. FYI: Ingredients must be listed from the most prevalent item to the least. So, a package of wholegrain crackers may actually be nothing more than processed flours stripped of all nutritional value, glued together by some Trans fats. Trans fats are one of the most dangerous culprits out there. These items hide behind labels claiming they are free of Trans fats. How does this happen? The same labeling laws that govern the “fat free/calorie free” products govern these. Because the item contains less than 1/2 a gram of fat per serving it can be called “fat free”- regardless of it’s content. Partially hydrogenated products are Trans fats. These products turn oily foods into solid foods. They are used primarily in bakery items (cakes, cookies, and pastries), margarine, edible oil products, coffee creamers, fast foods and many others. These dangerous products are linked to many diseases and have zero nutritional benefit.

With this said, what can you do? Read the label! Make sure to read all labels carefully. Then, do the math. Make sure things add up on the side panels. Make sure you really know what is in your food. A good rule of thumb is if you can’t pronounce an ingredient or don’t know one or more of an ingredient listed, just don’t buy it! Also, avoid store bought bakery items; eat home made items if you must indulge. Eat fresh produce, or flash frozen. Limit dangerous Trans fats; get them out of your diet if you can. It takes time and self-denial, but it is truly worth it!

If you would like more details on any of the above mentioned in this article, please email at Wcole@functionfirst.com I would love to hear from you.

Wendy Cole ACE-CPT/ACE-CES/NS, is a life long fitness enthusiast with a deep desire to help others to live physically, mentally and spiritually clearer. She deeply believes that many of today’s illnesses can be overcome, or at least controlled by proper exercise, and diet. Wendy has been a part of the Function First team for the past year and has been helping clients attain both their corrective exercise and personal training goals.

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Corrective Exercise #19

March 31st, 2011

Corrective Exercise #19 is for one for both your pronators and your supinators. This is a great reactive exercise from the foot to the hip.

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Life’s Balancing Act on the Foot by Dr. Doug Stewart

February 10th, 2011

In 1971 I was just out of college and had moved to Eugene, Oregon, “running capital of the world,” to run. As an undergrad at the University of Hawaii I had won several state track titles, but had been significantly hampered by injuries, and I still wanted to see how good I could become.

It was Bill Bowerman’s last year as the University of Oregon coach, and the next year he would be the U.S. Olympic coach and founded Nike.

Consistent with my history I soon was injured in Oregon, this time with a heel spur/plantar fasciitis. Two Olympians, Steve Prefontaine (5K) and Mike Manley (steeplechase) showed me how to tape my foot which immediately got better, and surprisingly, my hip pointer (pain at the top of my pelvic bone) also went away. At the time I didn’t see the full significance of this, but it did start me thinking about how my foot, my foundation, affected the rest of my body.

I have come to recognize that most aches and pains are related to biomechanics. In this article I discuss what you can do about avoiding injuries, and especially about the foot’s role in avoiding them, the flip side of injury being efficient mechanics.

Two main ingredients make up mechanical health: good posture, and moving in a full connected way from the center of your body. A third, variety, helps you achieve the first two.

At a recent convention, the hot discussion was whether good foot posture, or good pelvic posture, was more important. That’s like asking, is it better to drink water or eat food? Good posture includes the whole body.

Nevertheless, I focus on footbeds/orthotics that address the foot’s posture, a “necessary and not sufficient” part of the puzzle, and leave the rest to people like Anthony.

The foot is your base of support, and in order to be balanced, the foot must be balanced. Imagine building a house on an unstable foundation.

Although the foot is of particular importance, it is also uniquely difficult to balance because many of the foot’s bones are horizontal. While you can stack/nicely balance/ the bones in the rest of the body on top of one another, you cannot do that with the feet. In order to maintain their arch shape, the bones must be tightly held together, or the foot will collapse.

There are several soft tissue structures, namely the muscles, fascia and ligaments, which might do this.

Muscles can usually hold the arch up for a short time when you’re standing still and the forces are small. For example, if you weigh 100 pounds, the force on each foot is 50 pounds. It gets tougher when you walk however, when forces increase to 120 pounds, and extraordinarily more difficult when you run and the forces are 350 pounds. The bottom line is that muscles are not up to the task of providing good foot posture when you either stand for a longer period of time, or run. Indeed, muscles are designed to control and cause motion, and not be so involved in posture. If they do become too involved in posture, they become tight and sore.

Among the more common muscles that become tight from holding up the arch are the two hip flexors (Psoas major, Iliacus) and the Piriformis. Although they are external rotators, with the foot on the ground they lift up the arch. Tight hip flexors are associated with low back pain, and a tight Piriformis is associated with sciatic pain.

Fascia and ligaments are designed for postural support. It is their job to hold the arch up.

Fascia has the mechanical characteristic of being “plastic,” meaning that it adapts over time to what you ask it to do. Fascia is everywhere (the gristle in meat), and although it can support you in good posture, it often gets stuck supporting you in a hunched-over posture, making standing up straight more difficult. Typically it takes several months to change the length of fascia so that one day you might say “wow, standing up straight is not so difficult.”

Ligaments hold bones together, allowing movement while supporting structure. Their job is to limit joint distention and they become injured if stretched beyond a narrow range. Unlike muscles which actively contract, ligaments merely react to stretch, returning to their original position.

Because of their poor blood supply, ligaments are difficult to heal, which is why when you hurt your ankle, you often hope you break a bone, rather than stretch a ligament. Bones heal, often becoming stronger than they were originally, whereas stretched ligaments often remain longer, leaving you with a less stable joint.

When slowly stretched, as occurs over time, ligaments also become longer. When foot ligaments are longer, arches are flatter and your foundation is less aligned.

You might have inherited longer ligaments, or over time you might have lengthened your ligaments by exposing your foot to flat, hard surfaces. Since the foot adapts to the surface upon which you place it, by walking or running barefoot (or in minimalist shoes with no support), on a flat hard surface, you are asking your foot to become flatter. Our feet are not designed to function on these man-made surfaces, rather they are designed for randomly challenging, softer, supportive surfaces like pine needle covered forest paths strewn with rocks and roots; these surfaces keep your feet healthy.

The exception is if you have inherited longer ligaments and a flatter foot, in which case even the best environment won’t keep you healthy.

The consequence of a flatter foot, one that has poor posture, is the greater likelihood of many injuries, including injuries to the foot itself such as bunions, neuromas, plantar fasciitis and heel spurs, as well as to the Achilles, calf, shin, knee, groin, hip and low back. The ubiquitous plantar fasciitis, for example, is associated with excessive pulling on the plantar fascia (when the foot flattens, it also lengthens). There are many reasons behind this, including a tight calf and a rotated pelvis, but usually the primary risk factor is longer ligaments.

In that case it becomes necessary to complement the ligaments with a footbed that holds up the arch, creating good foot posture, which allows the muscles to do what they are designed to do, which is to move your body. How important the footbed is will depend on how misaligned you are without it. The longer your ligaments, the more misaligned you are, and the more time you want to spend being supported by a footbed.

Of course it is also important to deal with the other risk factors such as the problematic calf and pelvis; however that is not so much my business, nor is it the subject of this article.

I was also asked to comment on minimalist shoes, such as the Vibram five finger shoe, since they are somewhat the rage these days.

Under no circumstances that I can think of, will your feet be healthy if you walk or run barefoot for any period of time on man-made hard, flat surfaces. This includes minimalist shoes, which allow you to function as if you were barefoot.

I agree that shoes have become too cushioned and insulate us from our environment. Nevertheless, some of us tried the experiment of minimalist shoes back in the late ‘60s, when we used to run in black canvas Keds with a minimalist crepe rubber sole. Our feet lost some of their arch and spring, and we are suffering from that abuse today.

Of course, at the time we had young bodies, didn’t know any better, and loved our Keds. But I also remember my excitement in the early ’70s when I wore my first cushioned shoe, a Tiger (now Asics) Cortez, designed to compensate for the hard roads. Intuitively I sensed that the hardness of roads was part of the problem.

You will be able to run successfully in a minimalist shoe if you stick to softer, supportive, randomly changing surfaces, and if you have inherited sufficiently strong ligaments to maintain good foot posture. Otherwise, you’re asking for trouble.

I am also occasionally asked if footbeds make your muscles lazy. After reading this, you will realize the answer is no. Footbeds complement ligaments to achieve good posture. They don’t do the work of muscles. On the contrary, good foot posture allows the muscles to work in a more balanced, efficient way.

Doug Stewart, Ph.D. (biomechanics), went to college on a track scholarship, often trying to run 100 miles a week, and often getting injured. His injuries and a desire to be more efficient motivated him to address his mechanics, which as it turns out are human mechanics, and common to most of us☺. He makes footbeds, and can be reached for comments by emailing Dougstewart2@cox.net.

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The Unprofessional Fitness Professional

January 25th, 2011

Last week I posted on Facebook (http://tinyurl.com/4m2a5u7) some grainy photos of a personal training session I stumbled upon in the Pacific Beach area in San Diego. I had parked my truck above the bayside beach to take in the view and draw inspiration for some goal setting and strategic planning I was doing.

Well, I was inspired alright. Inspired to vent my shock and disbelief for what this “trainer” was pulling off as a paid personal training session.

The photos below are from the personal training session I witnessed. As I fitness professional, I was naturally drawn to the isolated personal training session taking place right in front of me in this beautiful setting. Sitting there for ten minutes, I couldn’t take my eyes off what was happening. You know the way people drive by a car accident on the freeway very slowly so they can see what is going on? And then when they catch a glimpse, they can’t pull their eyes away from it? That was me. I watched for another 10:00 and took some pictures.
unprofessional fitness1unprofessional fitness2unprofessional fitness3
When they were all finished with their session (which involved much of the same as the photos show), the trainer packed up his travel kit and put it in his mobile training van. On the way, they walked passed my truck and I caught a sound bite of their conversation. It was the trainer discussing a potential personal purchase he was going to make and the associated investment. It was all about him.

The looks on both their faces, the lack of emotion in their voices and their body language mirrored one another. They reminded me of what my two young daughters look like when they are asked to straighten up their playroom. Hardly inspired would be an understatement.

By the unprecedented number of fitness pros that weighed in on the pictures, it touched a nerve with you too. The comments ranged from hilarious to disbelief. The thread then evolved into ways that we can be constructive and learn from this captured incident.

As I commented on the initial Facebook post, it was unbelievable to see how disengaged this guy was with his client. It literally looked like he was just waiting for the hour to be over. Physically present, but intellectually and emotionally somewhere else.

Several comments suggested that maybe he was training a friend, girlfriend, etc. That thought at first made me pause and want to cut the guy a little slack. But then the quote came to mind; “How you do anything is how you do everything”. If I train a friend or family member, I probably overcompensate to show them how awesome I am :).

We can all hypothesize what made this session what it was or what made this trainer behave this way. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. Our newest team member at Function First and PTA Global/NASM educator Derrick Price suggested trainer burnout. Definitely a possibility. I’ve never experienced burnout in 23 years of working with clients so I can’t relate, albeit I don’t do more than 20 sessions a week and never start earlier than 9:00 a.m. (cue smart-ass comments about Anthony).

If it is burnout, should his clients still be paying him for a service that looks like that which I witnessed? Should I have swooped in to their session and relieved him (and me) of the tragedy occurring?

Another possibility is that this guy really doesn’t know any better. We have no idea what his educational and/or professional background is. Did he get a certification and suddenly go into business? Did he ever have the opportunity to work alongside or be mentored by some exceptional professional(s)?

We’ll don’t really know the answers to any of these questions. We do know is that the photos evoked a response in most of us. We all need to accept that the responsibility to raise the bar lies with each and every one of us.

What did I learn from this experience and all the posts that went along with it? It made me reflect on the times that I may have dropped the ball with a client during a session. At times, I’ve had brief conversations with my assistant about business related issues in the presence of a client during a session. Or I’ve let a vendor distract me while with a client. Little things compared to what I witnessed on the beach, but things to improve up nonetheless.

Tony Babarino, a Los Angeles area trainer posted a lot of comments. He was so irritated by the photos he set up a page on Facebook for photos of “trainers behaving badly”. Tony wants you to feel free to add your photos http://tinyurl.com/4ckxqrn. My wish would be that we get a good laugh from all this and then apply the lessons so obvious here.

I’m going to leave you with a few words or phrases that I would like someone to use if they were asked to describe a photo of me working with a client. I’d love to hear the same for a session with you.

Dedicated to raising the bar in our industry,
AC

Engaged
Inspired
Inspiring
Present
Motivating
Empathetic
Focused
Excited
Dedicated
Leading
Confident
Fulfilled

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Ankle Squeezes in Sway Back Pose from The Pain-Free Program

January 5th, 2011

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10 Ways to Overcome Procrastination in 2011-by Bobby Cappuccio

January 5th, 2011

The following post was written by a great friend of mine and a brilliant mind. Bobby Cappuccio is a leader in the fitness industry and an extensively studies human behavior, particularly in relation to health and fitness.

This post originally appeared on the best fitness education portal on the internet, PTontheNet. Bobby writes extensively for PTontheNet and I’m fortunate to be very involved with them too.

Please enjoy Bobby’s great article.
______________________________________________________

Deception is a concept that is despised in our society. It violates our sense of fairness and arouses our instinctual nature to nurture and protect the victim. From the sandbox to the boardroom we’ve all heard the not too unfamiliar cry of “It’s not fair!!”

Outrage arises not just when we feel violated ourselves, but almost equally when witnessing the victimization of others. Elizabeth Tricomi, professor of psychology at Rutgers University, observes that “…the brain doesn’t just reflect self-interested goals, but instead, these basic reward processing regions of the brain seem to be affected by social information…That might explain why what happens to other people seems to matter so much to us, even when it might not actually directly affect our own situation.”

My question, as uncomfortable as it may be, is…Is it truly possible for a victim to be deceived if they’re not in some part a willing participant?

Every situation brings with it our own perception and interpretation, stemming from a lifetime of experiences, beliefs and values, and, therefore, biases. So our interpretation of events is the combination of fact and perception. Hence, every story we tell is, to a degree, fictitious. Could this be especially true regarding the stories we tell ourselves?
Consider Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly. Cho Cho San is more acquired than courted by her new husband, United States Naval Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton. From the beginning, the loyalty, faith and love that she gives with gentleness of a “butterfly” is returned with carelessness, lies and betrayal.

For three years after Pinkerton departs from his wife, leaving her pregnant with not more than the empty promise to return to her “after the robin’s nest,” she waits naively, but ever so faithfully. Despite the admonishment from her servant and even her husband’s personal aide to forget the lies of a treacherous man who has clearly forgotten her, she remains loyal in a way that is so sweet, trusting, it is painful, even tormenting, to watch.

It is only after Pinkerton’s return to Nagasaki with his new American wife that Cho Cho realizes his extent of her betrayal. She sees the loss of her illusion of a loving husband as analogous to loss of honor. In the dramatic final scene she seeks redemption by ending her own life.

I cannot help wonder if the tragedy is the treachery of Pinkerton’s deceitful callousness or in Cho Cho’s quiet subservience. Was her mental model of love and devotion so deeply rooted, so pervasive that she chose ignorance over prudence in the face of obvious betrayal? As undeserving as she was, was the pain of her reality more intense than the illusion she imagined?

In many ways all of us are not too dissimilar to Cho Cho San. We deceive ourselves into seeing our reality not as it is but as we wish it would be. We delay until tomorrow to avoid dealing with our issues today. The danger in this becomes evident when our reality can no longer be ignored, yet we have denied it for so long that the consequence, figuratively, is death in the form of lost opportunity or, worse, our career. In actuality, dealing with reality is less painful than denying it. Yet, with the economy, rate of change, growth of competition, etc., the enormity of our circumstances may dissuade us from doing what we know we should do whether we feel like it or not.

Here are 10 tips to overcome procrastination in 2011.

1. Fear of criticism, rejection and failure are major reasons why people hesitate to take action. Understand that any significant goal will be met with resistance, scepticism and ridicule. Accept the fact that opposition may be a sign that you’re on the right track. No one who has ever done anything even slightly interesting has done it in the absence of criticism.

Albert Einstein said that “great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” Be open to feedback but accept that in the end if the feedback of a critic was of any value at all he/she would be doing something in the real world themselves instead of tearing down the ideas of others. Before allowing the opinion of another to distract you from important tasks, ask yourself, “Do I desire to be where he/she is in his/her career?” If not, who cares what they think?

2. Set goals that you intensely desire to achieve. Review them daily. We persevere when our desires exceed our fears.

3. Tell other people about what you intend to do. Use social pressure to make sure you follow through.

4. Write a list of every action step you need to take in order to complete a task or project.

5. Isolate the two most important tasks.

6. Write drunk, edit sober! Not literally, this just means get going and build momentum. Don’t worry about perfection.
Perfection is indefinable and, therefore, unattainable. Just produce. Later on, you can go back to your work and revise it.

7. Similarly, the hardest part of dealing with anything is to simply get going: from a project to dating after a break-up or divorce to starting your life over in a new location. Identify one small action you can take just to get you started.

8. Start with the task that causes you the most anxiety and frustration. Removing that task from the project makes the rest of the process seem much easier by contrast.

9. Identify the consequences of not taking action. What is the most painful result of not getting started on the thing you’ve been avoiding? When the pain of not doing something exceeds the pain of doing it, it’s likely to get done. Think about how you feel about putting off your taxes two days before the deadline.

10. Determine the areas of your life that are suffering the most not taking action and then list every benefit you believe you will experience as a result of doing what you know you should do.

Cheers,
Bobby

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Corrective Exercise 18

November 18th, 2010

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My One Day at the 7th Interdisiplinary Congress on Low Back and Pelvic Pain

November 17th, 2010

What an opportunity for those of us in Southern California to have the 7th Interdisciplinary Congress on Low Back and Pelvic Pain come to Los Angeles. This is an incredibly influential gathering of top experts from all over the world and is only held every 3 years. Unfortunately, I was limited to attending just one day due to other obligations, but I’m glad I did.

I hit the road from San Diego at 5:30 a.m. Thursday morning to be there for the morning sessions that began at 8:00 a.m. Thursday was the day that I really wanted to be there because of the presenters speaking that day. In particular, I wanted to see Robert Schleip from Germany and Leon Chaitow from the UK. Dr. Schleip heads up the Fascia Research Project from the University of Ulm. And Dr. Chaitow is the author of many books on manual medicine and the editor of The Journal of Movement Therapy.

This was a line-up of “heavy hitters’ in the world of myofascia and exactly why I coordinated my schedule to be there on this day. The afternoon ran two parallel sessions in which I jumped back and forth between rooms to hear the speakers on topics that were of more interest to me.

The line-up for the morning sessions looked like this:

Siegfried Mense: The thoracolumbar fascia as a source of low back pain

Robert Schleip: Tearing and micro injuries of lumbar fasciae as potential pain generators

Helene Langevin: Ultrasound imaging of connective tissue pathology associated with chronic low back pain

Jean Claude Guimberteau: Journey under the skin to the muscles, lumbar fasciae and structural architectures

Jay Shah: Ultrasound techniques reveal objective abnormalities of myofascial trigger points and surrounding connective tissue

Leon Chaitow: Fascia directed therapies for the treatment of low back pain: review and new directions
(There were too many afternoon sessions to list here)

It was an honor to be there and listen to the latest research. I was thoroughly impressed at the level of knowledge that the faculty had on their subject matter and their dedication to research. At the same time, I felt myself being a bit disappointed in the limitations of the very same research.

Most of the researchers made it a point to clarify the insight derived from their study was limited to a very specific (and small) area of the body and at a very specific moment in time. While a few others implied very broad applications to similarly limited studies. And others openly wondered about the possible applications and inferences from the study without attempting to make the study something it was not.

Over the years I have read and continue to read a significant amount of research papers and have been involved in several studies. Although my knowledge of statistics is very limited, my understanding of experimental design and application of findings is reasonably solid. So when I hear the findings of a study presented without any “qualifiers” by the very researchers themselves, I find it intriguing if not alarming.

A platform such as this Congress is the perfect opportunity for a researcher to speak to other researchers and clinicians about the limitations and possible applications of the research. Most research is not given this opportunity. Instead, it is read through a scientific journal without the opportunity for further clarification.

The research into the human organism continues to be pieces of the puzzle and not the solution to the puzzle itself. And when therapists, trainers, coaches read reviews of the research or abstracts and not the research itself, there tends to be huge misinterpretations and misapplications. And if the person reading the research does not understand experimental design or only makes conclusion from their paradigms or philosophies, we’ve got problems.

I would have loved to have had some time to ask questions of the researchers. I did get a chance to speak briefly with Dr. Paul Marshall of Australia after his talk. He was one of the researchers who, in my opinion drew some very broad conclusions from his research. Talking with him I found out that his study looked at isometric, concentric and eccentric contractions. Yet he only presented on the isometric contractions because there was too much data too analyze from the concentric and eccentric contractions.

In an effort to get his paper published, there is no surprise he used the data that was more accessible. But he did not even mention during his presentation that he had data from the other contractions. Nor did he communicate that the findings may have been different when movement was involved. Common senses and other studies would suggest that the findings would be different.

My take-home from the conference was confirmation of a belief that I already had: Proceed with caution when citing research. I love what these researches have done and thank them for their contribution. Let us all keep things in perspective.

The next World Congress is in Dubai. I don’t think I’ll be dropping in for just one day if I go there.

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Hip Twist from The Pain-Free Program

October 28th, 2010

A non-technical explanation of the Hip Twist exercise for the person using The Pain-Free Program: A Proven Method to Relieve Back, Neck, Shoulder and Joint Pain

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Are You Boring?

October 28th, 2010

Are you boring? You just might be. Let’s ask someone who would know you better than anyone else-your nervous system. You might be the life of the party or the class clown and at the same time be a complete movement dud.

We regularly have clients who come to see us who have been doing the same exercises for years. Sometimes these are strength exercises, sometimes it’s a form of cardiovascular exercise and sometimes it’s corrective or rehabilitative exercises.

For example, I had a 68 year old client whose back had been bothering him for 9 months before he came to see me. He was given floor exercises for his back by a chiropractor 8 months ago. The generic exercises helped a little at the beginning but provided no improvements for the last 7 and a half months even though this gentlemen did the exercises every morning for 8 months.

Why was he no longer getting any benefit from the exercises? Because his nervous system was bored to death. And even though this gentleman was not getting any value from the exercises, he had developed an almost emotional attachment to them. He didn’t want to give them up even though his body used up with little value they had a long time ago.

I often use the computer analogy when describing the human body to audiences. The hardware of the computer is our muscles, bones, joints, tendons and ligaments. Our software is our nervous system. What you see on your monitor (hardware) is the result of the software.

The human software becomes more effective and efficient with stimulation. What does that mean to you? It means breaking out of ruts and limitations and giving your body a chance to learn new and improved ways of doing things. This is why we reassess our clients every other week and change their exercise programs. A corrective exercise program must be adjusted more frequently than a traditional strength or cardio program so the body’s software can learn in “chunks” instead of being overwhelmed.

Imagine the world in which you live and move is a sphere. You stand in the middle of the sphere. If that sphere is only a little taller than you and a little wider than you, that is the extent of your movement adventure. Pretty boring.
human sphere
Doing the same exercise program for months or years keeps your movement sphere small. It doesn’t matter if those exercises are corrective, walking on the treadmill or the same strength training exercises (particularly on machines); your world has shrunk.

And what happens when you are suddenly forced to expand your sphere during a weekend tennis game or stumble when hiking? You get hurt.

The best way to prevent injury and avoid being a movement dud is to expand your sphere. You do this by gradually and strategically exposing yourself to movements that “feed” your software quality information. But you have to be careful that you don’t take on too much too soon. A strategic plan will be one that expands your sphere according to where your body needs it most AND without the risk of injury.

There are lots of ways to expand your sphere strategically. At Function First, we teach you to move right before we teach you to move more. We begin with quality over quantity. And then when your body is ready, we let you play with the “toys” we use in our studio to keep things novel, engaging and fun. Toys like the Core-Tex™, TRX, BOSU and kettle bells.

Do you need these to avoid being a movement dud? Absolutely not. But will they make the process fun? You better believe it. And it might even make you more interesting at your holiday parties.

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