Should You Use Corrective Exercise

Jessica Bento, Physical Therapist

It is a rather polarizing concept. Corrective exercise, for some they have never heard of it, others they think it is an over blown idea. That begs the question, is corrective exercise something you should know and use?! 

Being a physical therapist you think I would immediately say YES! After all, much of the work I do in the clinic could easily be considered in the category of “corrective”. My answer really depends on how you choose to define and understand corrective exercise. 

What is corrective exercise? It is an exercise that helps address a specific problem in one’s movement and functional capacity. If that sounds kinda vague, GOOD! I want it to be left open quite a bit, because ultimately ANY exercise should have the capability of being corrective. In fact, all your training should be devoted to trying to identify corrective drills.

That doesn’t mean getting down on the ground and never doing anything powerful, integrated, or highly dynamic. Quite the opposite, your training should always be trying to progress to bigger, whole body movements. You can get more out of corrective exercise if you understand some simple concepts. 

Everything Is Layered

My biggest problem with the term “corrective” is where are we left with anything that doesn’t receive that label? An exercise should not encourage negative effects on movement capabilities. That leaves us with not really individual corrective movements, but layers upon ANY exercise. 

What DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training tries to do as a system, rather than a group of individual exercises, is demonstrate how we layer one movement to the next. It may seem overly simple to move from a Bear Hug to Front Hold Squat, or Deadlift to Sprinter Deadlift, or even Tall Kneeling to Half Kneeling Overhead Press. Yet, it is those “simple” progressions of a movement that allows them to be powerful. How do I mean? 

By doing the little things like changing body and holding position you expose your body to brand new elements. You identify where weaknesses lie, you challenge your body’s ability to maintain proper movement, and really this is what we want our “corrective exercise” to be in practice. 

A corrective exercise isn’t done with a band, it isn’t done on the ground, this isn’t what makes an exercise corrective. Rather, it is the overall scheme and intent of where you start and where you go with training that makes it corrective. It is the identification of a specific issue and how you are going to help people it from a weakness to a strength through progression. 

What is a practical means of doing so? Check out you can layer simple DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training movements to create powerful results. 

Check out more great progressions from the ground up in our NEW “DVRT Better Backs, Knees, & Shoulders” program HERE