Posts Tagged ‘corrective exercise’

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Corrective Exercise Four Point Rotations

Friday, May 15th, 2015

When we prescribe a corrective exercise to our client, there are multiple factors that go into the decision making process. For an exercise to be appropriate for a client at any given time, we have to consider the 4 characteristics of every exercise:

*biomechanical
*physiological
*neurological
*psychological

The Four Point Rotations is an exercise when looked at analytically, can successfully address these characteristics for many client types. This is an effective exercise to emphasize hip motion while unloading the spine and decreasing the threat for those with lower back pain.

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Why MRI Findings Don’t Mean Much to A Corrective Exercise Program

Monday, November 24th, 2014

The video below is taken from a live presentation that I did at the Fit Pro Convention at Loughborough University in England a little while back. The clip is from the presentation “25 Things Your Client Needs to Know about Lower Back Pain”.

In The Pain-Free Program I discuss people wanting to identify a “villain” to give them some sense of confirmation to their pain. Imaging studies such as an MRI is a route for many to try to find this villain. What most of our clients are surprised to hear is that the results of their MRI has very little to do with the exercise intervention.

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Pain Free Programming

Thursday, November 13th, 2014

More than 5 years ago I wrote a blog post on Exercise Sequencing vs . Exercise Progressions. Sequencing of exercises is a critical part of how we design our corrective exercise programs and instrumental in what we teach in the Pain Free Movement Specialist.

From the feedback that I’ve received in the 18 years or so that I’ve been teaching principles of the Function First Approach-programming is always the most challenging aspect. Too many fitness pros go down one of two “rabbit holes”:

1. Programs built around giving symptomatic relief which is clearly outside of our scope of practice. For example, the client whose knee is painful is given all “corrective” exercises focused on the knee. The inherent risk in this for fitness pros is that you have indirectly (and possibly unintentionally) made a medical decision because your intervention is based on pathology you have determined existed. Unless you are working in a post rehab capacity (different paradigm) with directives from a licensed professional you are treading on thin ice.

2. Programs that follow a linear progression=”if this than that” or “first this than that” do not address nor acknowledge the diversity of the human body or human experience. Examples might be mobility always before stability or activate than integrate.

If working with the human body was that easy, programming from either of those rabbit holes would work every time. I wish it were that easy. We understand that programming, especially for the chronic pain client is difficult. Biomechanics is a piece of the pie and strategic movement is critical to success. And as movement professionals, that is our tool of the trade. But there is so much to the choice of the tools and the delivery of those tools that make or break a successful program for the chronic pain client.

Movement is more than motion for the pain sufferer. It should be strategic, efficient, non-provocative & confidence building.

The follow up programming is no different. We change our client’s exercise program every two weeks. The major objectives do not change, but the variability of the input via the exercises is a critical piece of the process toward meeting those objectives. The role of variability in the corrective exercise domain cannot be underestimated. When exercises are of limited biomechanical, neurological and physiological demand for the purpose of influencing the quality of motion, variable learning opportunities are necessary. Waiting for completele mastery of any exercise may actually slow the process toward the long term goal.

The real goal is not to get better at exercise “x” or “y” or to strengthen this or lengthen that. No. The real goal is to assist the client to move better and be prepared for as much physical demand to the body that they may encounter.

There is a process to this and understanding the pain experience for the client is a necessity. Marrying the role of biomechanics with the neuroscience and psychology of pain are pillars of the Pain Free Movement Specialist curriculum. We can teach you this if you have the desire to help those that have not gotten help before. Would you like to take the journey with us and become a resource to people from around the world-not just your neighborhood?

This journey is not for everyone and we understand this. Because this is not just a curriculum that teaches you how to write an exercise program, it is a curriculum that moves you through stages of in-depth understanding of how to best serve this incredibly diverse yet underserved population. Everyone should be given the chance to realize a life void of pain and you can help facilitate that for them.

Contact us to see if you are right for this curriculum. Email education@functionfirst.com or kmurray@functionfirst.com or call 619.285.9218.

Cheers for the PFMS

    My corrective exercise abilities as a trainer are profoundly different after learning the Function First approach to Corrective Exercise. The Pain Free Movement Specialist Certification Program takes you on in-depth journey into the field of Corrective Exercise and Pain Science utilizing sound biomechanics, principles and strategies to address your clients needs. The real-world tangible benefits from this program were evident immediately as I not only became confident but also proficient and successful at working with my clients suffering from various forms of pain.

    What I particularly enjoyed about this program was the immediate benefit I experienced as a result of the curriculum. Not only was I able and had the confidence to work with and assess my clients, I was also armed with effective and proven exercise strategies and protocols. I have seen the benefit of these skills and my clients have too!

    I highly recommend the Pain Free Movement Specialist Certification for anyone looking to set themselves apart from the rest, who has a desire to learn proven and successful strategies and who wants to master the intricate in’s and out’s of both Corrective Exercise and Pain Science!
    Reyci Martorell

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Pain Science and the Movement Professional

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014

Pain Science Webinar

Below we will take comments and questions on the webinar.

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Webinar Topics: Your Choice

Wednesday, October 1st, 2014

We need your input. Give us your rankings for topics on our upcoming FREE webinar.

Please let us know with this 60 second survey. Four choices, let us know what you want most.

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Your Circle of Influence for Pain

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014

From Chapter 2 of The Pain-Free Program: A Proven Method to Relieve Back, Neck, Shoulder and Joint Pain

First, let’s begin with your doctor. Your doctor is there for you. He or she is not you. In other words, no doctor knows your body better than you do. When you go to the doctor with a complaint about your body, your doctor examines you, runs tests if necessary and then applies a diagnosis to your problem. This diagnosis is based on what the doctor sees, feels with his hands and sometimes hears. Your doctor may also come to a conclusion based on the answers you provide him to targeted questions. But your doctor can never experience what you experience. The pain, the limitations, the inconveniences are all unique to you. There may be similarities to others with a like condition, but never will their experiences be identical to yours. Therefore, this well-educated, well meaning (hopefully) individual is much more limited in how he can affect your circle of influence than you probably thought. Although limited, his influence is still an important part of the route to recovery.

The doctor has four main options with you once a diagnosis has been made. He can send you to some form of therapy, prescribe medication for pain and/or inflammation, perform surgery or some combination of the 3. Once this decision has been made, the role of the doctor becomes more of an evaluator. He evaluates the impact of the intervention he prescribed and determines to continue, modify, stop or apply one of the other 3 options available. The doctor’s role becomes smaller and smaller after an accurate diagnosis has been made.

Sometimes the doctor’s evaluation and your personal assessment of progress may not match. The case usually being that the doctor feels you have progressed or improved more than you think you have. This difference in opinion brings us to a critical crossroads in your history book. Because if you are not as improved as the doctor thinks you are, or should be, and are still struggling with the pain, then there must be a reason. The possible reasons that run through most people’s minds are that the doctor made the wrong diagnosis. The drugs prescribed weren’t effective or the therapist didn’t “make me well”.
Perhaps it is to your advantage as an individual seeking an improved quality of life, to consider some other possibilities -possibilities outside the contemporary “menu” of options most adhere to. Medications top the list on this contemporary treatment menu, just look at the profit margins for the pharmaceutical companies in this country. If medication is part of your daily regimen for coping with musculoskeletal pain, it doesn’t have to be.

From page 23 of The Pain-Free Program


Medications are nothing more than an adjunct to your path to a pain free life. They are not the foundation. And they are certainly not the ultimate answer to your problems. There is not a single medication on this earth that on its own, relieves pain, stops inflammation, fights infections, etc. The only way medications can do their job, is to assist the other systems in the body to do their jobs more effectively.

Am I telling you to flush all of your medication down the toilet right now? No. But I am going to give you hope as to why you should be able to one day. That hope should be inspiration to start formulating a plan to get off your anti-inflammatories and pain killers. Of course I am going to add, “check with your doctor first”. But keep in mind, pain pills and anti-inflammatories are not life and death drugs, as say, blood pressure medication might be. So getting off of these drugs is as much your decision, if not more, as it is your doctor’s.

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Four Reasons Why Becoming a Pain-Free Movement Specialist Will Change the Way You Help People

Thursday, May 29th, 2014

By Kevin Murray BSc, CPT, CES
Director of Education

#1 – Education By Way Of Principles
The Pain Free Movement Specialist curriculum is a principle-based outlook on movement and function. Principles are nature’s laws that forever endure, and cannot be broken. Principles are fundamental truths that have universal relevance.

Without principles, there is tremendous temptation to use methods, or other modalities that are not supported by, or based around correct principles.

Foam rolling, tennis balls, thera canes are just some of the modalities that come to mind. Make no mistake, a foam roller can be an excellent tool to guide the process towards creating positive change, but foam rolling itself is not corrective exercise.

When guided by correct principles, we can begin the corrective journey with any client, and be fully competent in guiding them down the direction best suited for their unique needs. It is during this process that we can then create an empowering environment where Pain-Free living is truly possible.

#2 – Understanding The Neuro-Matrix
When working with the client in pain – the nervous system is king. At Function First, we are guided by biomechanics, not ruled by them. Low back pain is much more than “tight hip flexors” or “excessive lumbar lordosis” or “over pronated feet”.

Pain is complex, and we cannot help the chronic pain population with just one simple solution. Understanding that pain is a complex system, we need to remember this principle; the longer an individual has been in pain, the less of a relationship the pain has to tissue damage. What does this mean?

Simply put, your clients’ pain could be related to fear avoidance, biopsychosocial stressors, motor control complications, low irritability thresholds, and the list goes on-and-on.

Pain neuroscience is a critical component behind Function First Mastery, which is why it’s part of both the online curriculum, and the subsequent live events that follow in levels two, three and four.

#3 – 1.5 Billion People Need Our Help
The numbers don’t lie… Heart disease, cancer and diabetes combined does not total the number of folks currently suffering from chronic pain. It’s clear the Health Care system in North America and other industrialized nations are on life support themselves, and cannot keep up with the number of chronic pain patients with the current blueprint.

There is good news however… A consciousness uprising has begun. Individuals are becoming more proactive and taking the initiative to act, rather than be acted upon. People are becoming more response-able (responsible) and are looking for alternatives, a different approach to solving their pain troubles. They want to be empowered and in control of their pain.

The Pain Free Movement Specialist curriculum is built around meeting this objective. At its base, it’s been created for those professionals who demand the most out of themselves; those whose purpose is to inspire and empower through the implementation of crystal clear corrective exercise principles, insights, objectives and outcomes.

#4 – 20 Years & Counting
Since 1994, Function First has been on the cutting edge of corrective exercise innovation and intellect, educating thousands of professionals at conferences, workshops, seminars and mentorships on how to create Pain-Free living through movement.

The Pain-Free Movement Specialist curriculum is the first of its kind, and is the culmination of all that Anthony has learned and assimilated in over 20 years of working with the chronic pain population. A frequent question that inevitably arises at live events is “how can I learn more?” We are so proud to provide this deep and immersive curriculum relating solely to working with the chronic pain population.

From day one of its inception, the purpose behind creating such a comprehensive online curriculum was to provide a backstage pass so we could reveal everything that makes the Function First Approach so powerful, and to make it available on a digital platform. With over 14 hours of content, we have left no stone un-turned.

You – the agents of change who are leading the Pain Free movement have spoken. The Pain-Free Movement Specialist curriculum is now available and we invite you to join us as we break from old traditions, old ways of thinking, and challenge the status quo to better serve this under serviced demographic that desperately needs our help.

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The Chronic Pain Exercise Difference

Wednesday, May 7th, 2014

You’re all pumped up for your new client. You spoke with her on the phone and she really needs help. She is in her late 40s and 25 years a lawyer—hunched over law books and computers. After 3 bouts of physical therapy for her neck and shoulder pain in the past year, she is ready to get on an exercise program. In fact, she has sought medical help multiple times for her neck and shoulders over the past 5 years. Although still in a lot of pain, she has been cleared for exercise.

She knows she isn’t moving well and doesn’t want to get “hurt” working with a trainer who pushes her too much, so she has sought you out. You explained to her about posture and tight and weak muscles, and how after you assess her you’re sure you’ll find “lots” to work on.

Before she arrives, you are already anticipating the kyphosis, forward head posture, tight hip flexors, and internally rotated shoulders. This will be a piece of cake.

Uh-oh. After greeting her, you can immediately see she is not the structural train wreck you anticipated. In fact, after your assessment, you find her posture is fine and she moves pretty well. This doesn’t make sense. Nothing is fitting cleanly into your corrective exercise recipe.

Now what?

First, you have to understand what chronic pain means to the body and brain. And although biomechanics are a definite factor in mechanical stress, with chronic pain it’s not so easy.

At Function First we say that we are “guided by biomechanics but not ruled by it,” which means we must first thoroughly understand how the body moves – period. And it is our opinion that you have to start here first. No sense in jumping right into working with the chronic pain client if you have an empty toolbox.

There are many modulators to chronic pain, and exercise is one of them when programmed properly. And the beauty of an exercise intervention is the positive cascading effects it can have on the individual physically, mentally and emotionally.

Sure, by the process of elimination you can find things that do not hurt your client. But that’s not the best approach, because if you do reproduce their pain, you can’t un-ring the bell. You have excited the neurotag associated with their pain and may have lost the client forever. And perhaps worse, you may have scared them away from exercise for good.

Have you seen the statistics on chronic pain?
Pain Stats

Have you thought about the opportunity to make a difference? If not, Click here

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The Pain-Free Movement Specialist Introduction

Monday, April 21st, 2014

The time has come for the fitness industry to rise to the occassion and better serve the 1.5 BILLON people world wide that are suffering from chronic pain.

See what the opportunity is and how Function First can share what has worked for us over the past 20 years working with the chronic pain population.

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An Approach vs. Method: You can’t get there from here

Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

As for methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have troubel. Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve opened many workshops with a slide containing Emerson’s above words. To me it speaks volumes in perspective when working with the human body.

If I knew then what I know now….

How many of us have said that? As health and fitness professionals we should be assuming a best practices, evidence based strategy in our work with clients, athletes and patients. And as new research provides valuable insights along with practical experience, we evolve.

Personally, I have had to completely let go of and modify many of my long standing beliefs about the work I do. From my college experience in the mid ‘80s until today, much has changed. I have worked with chronic pain clients for 20 years, and the last several years alone have brought a monumental shift in the understanding of chronic pain and the neuromatrix involved in its perception. For me, this has influenced how I design exercise programs and how I educate my clients. But it has not changed everything. In fact in many cases it has provided a clearer understanding to why what we do has worked so well for clients who have not been successful elsewhere.

We have referred to what we do as the Function First Approach from day one. I did not name it a method and I did not name it after myself. Why? Because from the beginning I realized that an approach is more of a philosophy geared toward specific objectives AND that a great deal of what I was doing was based on the knowledge I gained from others. A method, on the other hand, is self-limiting and quite honestly a bit presumptive.

Merriam-Webster provides one definition: Method- (1) : a way, technique, or process of or for doing something (2) : a body of skills or techniques

At Function First, our core values are to improve the quality of motion and the quality of life of every client we are given the privilege to work with. Frankly, we can’t do that if we try to force every client into a recipe that we whipped up before we ever met them.

I assume that anyone who has ever called what they do the ___________(fill in a name) Method is very confident and passionate about how and why they do what they do. I would also suggest they have painted themselves into a corner. I personally know several brilliant people who have created a “method” and my point is not to make them wrong. But the reality is that those who have created a method will likely grow and evolve long before any of that information makes its way down to and is applied by their followers.

Holy Grail

Are all the answers in one spot?


So why does this matter? Because practitioners who use or follow one specific method do so at the exclusion of other potential interventions that might help. Dedicated to a guru? If you are, realize that you see the world only through that person’s lens.

Does Facebook drive you crazy reading posts by those ridiculous practitioners and what they are doing with their clients/patients? I bet you can’t even get half way through their blog post or video before you stop in disgust.

Thank God we can scroll down a little further and see a post by that brilliant professional who actually “gets it”. Now this one really knows what he/she is talking about, right?

Or perhaps they both do?

Your disdain for the first post could be what psychologist B.F. Skinner referred to as Cognitive Dissonance-ignoring or refuting other information regardless of how valid if it conflicts with or threatens our views. Your attraction to the second post might have you experiencing Confirmation Bias. This is when we surround ourselves with people that think and act like we do to keep ourselves comfortable in our decisions. We follow their work, use their ideas as our own and become offended and defensive toward those that have opposing views.

Can we grow personally and professionally if we impose these self-induced limitations upon ourselves? For me, the first step was and continues to be the ability to realize whether I am ignoring important facts as I hold on to long standing beliefs that may no longer be valid.

As an educator, it is my responsibility to deliver information accurately and to be clear on communicating that which is evidence based, that which has worked for me and that which has worked for others-which may or may not be evidence based. The good is news is that I have some pretty happy and grateful clients from around the world. The bad news is that they may not have improved for all the reasons I originally thought.

I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below.

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