By: Coach Dane Fernandez 

WHAT IS MOVEMENT

We have been living in a civilized society for thousands of years, and only up until recently have we seen a decline in of our populations physical abilities. There are few who have excelled at getting their body to its maximum ability and potential, but for the vast majority of the civilized world we have let our immediate environment take over causing physical evolutionary change.

It’s funny to think we live in a society that needs to count their steps in order to meet the suggested physical recommendations for daily exercise. Surrounding environments play a big factor in dictating a routine or habit. When living in a modern environment we feel the need to create things like the “10,000 step a day rule”. We also create modified movement facilities like weight gyms.

As a culture we have learned that in order for us to live in the modern world we need to take part in physical activity to up keep one’s health. Gyms and sports are a means to fun physical activity in hopes of improving oneself in dimensions of speed, agility, quickness, power, and strength.

GOOD MOVEMENT vs. BAD MOVEMENT
Are we creating healthy individuals or are we taking people farther from true healthy movement? With generalized and sport specific training we are developing the bodies abilities, but are we doing it correctly and safely? Doing a gym workout is believed to replace the physical activity that we’d normally take part in if we were still living in pre-modern times. Being in a gym setting is probably not the most ideal way to express excess energy but it works with our modern society and culture.

Sport specific and generalized training are great for personal development, they provide essential skills for mind and body awareness. It takes phenomenal strength and control to perform these types of activities. We can all agree that any type of body training is going to be beneficial compared to remaining stagnant. Education, discipline, and time are a few factors when looking at developing a healthy human body.

HEALTHY MOVEMENT vs. UNHEALTHY MOVEMENT 
When training is done correctly it can be extremely beneficial as one takes part in their daily lifestyle. The more your mind and body are trained the better they will respond when called upon. It is important to train ‘’the right way” on a daily basis.
Movement in our daily life comprises of multiple movement patterns. When we get stuck in a repetitive day-to-day routine it’s hard for most of us to practice healthy movements. Our movements become repetitive and unhealthy becoming harmful to one’s health.

Healthy movements can be tough to identify with all the misconceptions out in today’s health industry. Stick to the basics and master them, this is key. Once you’ve owned the basics only then can you start doing all the fun and cool movements and workouts.

Healthy movement starts with where the movement takes place. Moving in all three planes of motion will allow your body to be optimally trained. Movement in the Sagittal (Forward-Back/Up-Down), Frontal (Left-Right), and Transverse (Rotation)planes of motion will put a halt to the day to day routine.
Moving correctly takes time and dedication to the basics. Learning to control you body through it’s proper movement patterns becomes essential for optimal human health.

Control has to be one of the most underlooked components to a healthy body. Proper stabilization and mobilization of your body needs to be addressed before performing SAQ, Power, Strength, and Endurance activities or workouts. Capabilities and abilities improve when mobilization and stabilization are performed on a daily basis.

With mobility and stability improving you will be setting yourself up for successful training protocol and workouts. Addressing strength, power, speed, agility, quickness, endurance, and aerobic capacity will be much easier. Focusing on how to train the correct energy pathway for the given workout will be the main concern instead of correcting bad form and posture.

SMART ACTIVE RECOVERY 
Performing movements and workouts will place stresses on your body’s bones, joints, and soft tissues. We’d all like to go day-to-day without any aches and pains and by starting a recovery protocol you will help ensure a healthy body. Succeeding in your workouts are very important for one’s health, but paying attention to how you treat your body after a workout has huge implementations as will.

By doing multiple active recovery techniques your body will start to notice faster adaptations to the stresses placed on it. Placing an emphasis on how your body heals and regenerates itself post exercise is an important part of a great training protocol. Emphasis can be placed on two types of recovery; active and passive recovery.

Usually many different theories arise as to how to do recovery and what methods to use. When dealing with post exercise protocol, one of the first things that should be implemented is an active decompression. This can be considered to be a short jog or locomotion technique to help circulate blood flow in the body, thus improving overall recovery. Other types of active recovery are self myofascial releases along with tissue and joint decompression stretches.

Passive recovery is something that you do without exerting any effort like a hot/cold contrast bath, epsom salt bath, and massage or physical palpation. Passive recovery is commonly mistaken as “my recovery day” which consist of lying on the couch all day doing nothing at all (this is not what we want to do). Using proper passive recovery techniques can provide insights to body awareness and healing. By adding multiple recovery disciplines into your daily workout progression you are supercharging your bodies recovery cycle thus making you a healthier individual.

Add up all the smart movement strategies and start to implement them into your daily regime. If you are still unsure about how to apply there techniques into a fitness program please don’t hesitate to visit a local “smart gym”. Make sure that they go through proper programming and recovery in their day to day progressions.

It’s time to get out there and make your own medicine out of movement.