Are you running before you can walk?

As a personal trainer and fitness coach, I have often experienced people's desires to try the latest and greatst exercise, that they have typically seen in magazines, that claim to be the next best thing to get a 6 pack or lose the love handles or bingo wings.

Whatever your reasons for starting an exercise program it's vitally important to follow a progressive plan based on where you are now and where you want to be.

Don't run before you can walk!

So the point of this article is to give you a guide to the progressions you should be making to ensure your exercise program is safe and effective.

To get the best from your body you would be well advised to follow the following continuum....

Mobilise, Stabilise, & Strengthen.

1) Mobilise

Too often when people embark on a new exercise regime they jump feet first into energetic cardio routines or lively classes without first having a trained professional examine what their body is capable of.

Your first point of call should be a postural and movement analysis (often referred to as kinetic chain analysis) that allows you to understand which of the muscles in your body are tight, long, weak, strong, inhibited or facilitated.

Because of our current society's tendancy to be seated (in the office, the car the couch) many of us will exhibit tight facilitated musculature that pulls our posture out of position.

Once you understand which of the muscles in your body are tight you can target them specifically as part of a flexibility plan specific to your body... rather than the typical finsh a session stretch your hamstrings and go philosophy of most training sessions.

Ask yourself the question... why do you stretch the muscles you currently stretch?

So why is this important?

If you start to perform even simple movement patterns such as cycling and cross training at the gym, without mobilising or stretching/releasing tight musculature you are putting yourself at risk of injury and potentially making current postural deviations worse.

For example anyone with an office job would be well advised to avoid cycling or any seated exercise unless they have a specific hip flexor lengthening plan.

Find a good trainer, get assessed, then start to re-balance your muscles for a body that moves more naturally, burns more calories and stays injury free.

2) Stabilise:

great so we can now build mobility into our program to protect the joints and muscles what's next?

Stabilisation of the joints within the body is our next step to true strength and fitness.

Before we can start to add any true strength work into our program the joints and supporting structures must be stable through their natural ranges of motion.

Using static strengthening, or isometric exercise, we can create basic strength around a joint whilst ensuring perfect postural position and exercise technique.

An example of this would be a supported squat position. Instead of a dynamic squat that has high potential for movement error and compensation we would move into a squat position and take the time to analyse and correct our position for perfect practice...as practice makes consistent! You could use a friend, a mirror, or a trainer to look at your position and give you verbal and physical feedback to improve your position.

These static positions allow you to learn how a position should feel, how the muscles and joints feel in the correct allignment, so that when we introduce movement you know instinctively that you are achieving the desired action.

This is particularly essential for core exercise.

Often people rush into crunches and sit-ups as they presume they are the best exercise for the abdominals as their PE teacher or football coach always insisted on them, when really the abdominals are designed for stabilisation of the spine.

Exercises such as the plank, abdominal hollowing, pelvic bridges and supermen will all provide a more effective stabilisation training effect that supports the spine and reduces the chance of injury or chronic pain through exercise and daily activites.

It is important too to not neglect the stabilsers of the shoulder, the rotator cuff muscles which must be strengthened prior to large muscle exercises like the chest/bench press, shoulder press, lat pull down etc.

3) Strengthen:

Now that we have rebalanced the tightness/weakness in our muscles and addressed the need for stabilisation of the bodies joint structures we can begin to strengthen the major muscle groups of the body.

First we will need to build strength endurance, this allows the neuromuscular pathways to develop correctly so that what our brain thinks...the muscles do, and prepares the ligaments and tendons of the joints and muscles for harder work in the next stage.

Typically this involves comfortable weights or bodyweight exercises that we can perform in the 15-20 repetition range.

After 4-6 weeks of this progressive endurance program we can the add a greater strength element. Increasing the weight now to a level where you can only perform 6-10 repetitions with good technique. Again perform this progressively for 4-6 weeks and then alternate these cycles throughout the year.

So there you go people, a generic guide to the progressions you should be making through the initial 6 months to a year of your fitness program to ensure a balanced strong body.

There is more to learn with regards training for specific outcomes so look out for future articles but until then,

Stay healthy and happy,

Nathan

www.nathanlee-pt.com