Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Stop Guessing & Start Assessing

Last week I posted my top 10 ways to increase your sports performance. I basically just listed off my top 10 strategies without providing any detail or explanation of what the 10 strategies entail...


So what I plan on doing is to go over each strategy with an in depth description of what exactly the strategy is, along with reasons how and why it's critical to implement in your sports training program. This will actually give you an inside look at how we get such great results with our athletes....

1.) Correct Muscle Imbalances - Stop Guessing & Start Assessing

Muscle imbalances are the main culprit when talking about injury. Most injuries occur because there is a significant imbalance between antagonistic (opposite) muscle groups. To compete at optimal levels there must be a balance throughout your entire body. For example, let’s say that your pushing muscles (chest, shoulders and triceps) muscles are far stronger and tighter than the Pulling (upper and mid-back) muscles. That means you have a common imbalance between these two muscle groups and you are likely to hurt your rotator cuff (common shoulder injury). So what do you do about it? What you have to do is stretch the pushing muscles and strengthen your pulling muscles to create a balance between the two muscle groups, producing less stress on the shoulder joint resulting in an INJURY FREE Shoulder.

How do you develop muscle imbalances?

Over the course of time your body can develop muscular imbalances which can lead to serious injury or decreased performance. Your body develops these imbalances through poor posture, incorrect training, and compensation from existing injuries. In order to correct and prevent muscle imbalances at Optimal Performance Training Center every client/Athlete completes the “Optimal Performance Profile” which is a thorough assessment and evaluation that tests structural imbalances, length tension relationships between muscle groups, and functional movements. The results will give us the proper data to correct any imbalances you may have.

A key tool we utilize is what is called the functional movement screen. It is a 7 point test that include;

Overhead Squat


Hurdle Step


In-Line Lunge


Shoulder Mobility


Trunk Stability Push Up


Active Leg Raise


Rotary Stability

Each of the above movements has a unique scoring system that measures how efficient your body moves. Once our Optimal Performance Trainers collects the data, they then prescribe a set of proven corrective exercises to help correct any asymmetries or limitations discovered during the assessment.

Remember assessing is an essential part of creating customized results with your sports training program.

JZ

ps- Did you know that Optimal Performance offers all new athletes a Performance Pass, which is a free session? And in that free session we actually implement the FMS in conjunction with the 'Optimal Performance' profile.

Click here to get yours today - so you can take your training to the next level!!

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