This Is One Of The MOST Common Fitness Myths

Jessica Bento, Physical Therapist (Creator DVRT Restoration Certification, DVRT Rx Shoulder, Knees, Pelvic Control, & Gait Courses)

When I first started off as a therapist I always thought people had to own the movement unloaded before I loaded them with any type of weight or bands. I held this belief for quite some time until I realized that load can be a wonderfull tool for feedback. 

Feedback in order to allow people to “feel” where they are in time and space. Feedback to understand how to properly engage certain muscles. Feedback to understand how to move appropriately. The tool or shall I say, the load does all the work! 

Weight can be one of the most beneficial training tools out there and it often goes missed when working with people that are new to trining or recovering from injury. So many times I get asked, “what do I do before I use something like the Ultimate Sandbag or bands you are using since I can’t lift that?” Not understanding the weight isn’t necessarily there to challenge you, but to cue you correctly.

Bodyweight should not always the starting point for people, and if you make it that way you will lose out on an opportunity to progress your training. Bodyweight training actually requires way more stability and body awareness, more so than using load in the means I am going to discuss. 

You might be thinking. “Wait what the heck are you talking about…load is meant to challenge the body. What out that whole saying don’t load dysfunction?”

Don’t load dysfunction is true, if in fact that load causes more dysfunction. 

What do I mean? Well, take a body weight squat for example. Often times people begin with a bodyweigth squat as their go to squat for those learning the movement. But often times, the squat looks horrific and then you spend all this time trying to correct through various verbal or tactile cues when in actuality all you needed to do is allow their body to feel safe to move. 

Safe to move? Yes, safe to move meaning giving that person the ability to engage their core which is the foundation to all good movement… If we get their core “turned on” then they will start to feel safe to move. 

We have gone over this dozens of times. Proximal stability for distal mobility but people forget this for some reason when it comes to movements like squats, lunges…basically anything that isn’t “correctives” but this applies to anything. 

Get the core working and then you will see the rest fall into place. 

I see people miss opportunities all the time to incorporate the core into their training whether it be lateral stepping, side planks, hinges…you name it. 

So what do I mean. 

Below I show how you can fix a bad squat with getting more core invovled: 

Don’t miss saving 25% on all our Ultimate Sandbags and when you invest in any USB you will get our complete Body Armor Workout collection (a $85 value) for FREE HERE with code “armor”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Ｊｅｓｓｉｃａ Ｂｅｎｔｏ (@jessbento_physiotherapist)

Sweet Momentum Fitness shows below how incorporating the core into to lunges and steps can be of great benefit 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Ｊｅｓｓｉｃａ Ｂｅｎｔｏ (@jessbento_physiotherapist)