Welcome to factsaboutfitness.com.
Welcome to factsaboutfitness.com.
To better understand the principals of corrective exercise, it’s important to know why corrective exercise is necessary. Below is a brief summary of corrective exercise.
Joints move as a result of force created by muscular contractions. Each joint is designed to perform a specific action to allow fluid movement of the body. Proper balance of the muscles surrounding a joint is necessary for joint stability, flexibility and strength. When there is a deficit in flexibility or strength in an agonistic muscle, it must be compensated for by the antagonist muscle, which leads to dysfunction. Injuries occur when there is an imbalance in the length/tension relationship that lead to changes in arthrokinematics and movement impairments (Page, 2011).
An example of a common altered length tension relationship is internally rotated shoulders. Due to the internal rotation of the GH joint, the lengthened muscles would be the posterior deltoid, infraspinatus and teres minor and overactive (short) muscles would be the pectoralis major, lats, teres major, subscapularis and anterior deltoid (Brookbush, 2018).
According to the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), corrective exercise is the systematic process of identifying neuromusculoskeletal dysfunction using integrative assessments, designing a corrective exercise program and of implementation of the program. NASM’s Corrective Exercise Continuum consists of 4 phases: inhibitory, lengthening, activation and integration. Each of these phases is specifically designed to follow biomechanical, physiological and functional principles to improve muscle imbalances, minimize injury and maximize performance (Clark, Lucett & Sutton, 2014).
The need for correctional exercise is evident in our digital society. People spend more hours in front of a computer or digital device, and move less than generations before. As individuals become more inactive, a greater need for intervention strategies to prevent pain and injury exists. For example, 80% of adults are affected by low back pain (Kim, Vail, Azad, et al. 2019) and costs attributed to low back pain in the US is more than $100 billion (Crow & Willis, 2009). The prevalence and cost of low back pain is immense. Therefore, implementing strategic change to the neuromusculoskeletal system for pain and injury prevention is essential.
References
B. Brookbush. (2018). Upper body dysfunction (UBD). Retrieved from https://brentbrookbush.com/articles/postural-dysfunction-movement-impairment/upper-body-dysfunction-ubd/
Clark, M., Lucett, S., & Sutton, B. G. (2014). NASM essentials of corrective exercise training. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Crow WT, Willis DR. Estimating cost of care for patients with acute low back pain: A retrospective review of patient records. J Am Osteopath Assoc 2009;109(4):229–233.
Kim LH, Vail D, Azad TD, et al. Expenditures and health care utilization among adults with newly diagnosed low back and lower extremity pain. JAMA Netw Open. 2019;2(5):e193676.
Page P. (2011). Shoulder muscle imbalance and subacromial impingement syndrome in overhead athletes. International journal of sports physical therapy, 6(1), 51–58.