Many of you have used a foam roller or other tools to improve our pain or tightness.
But we have news for you: the location of your pain and tightness is rarely where your problem is. A foam roller may be helpful for making you feel more mobile. It will not help identify your problem’s origination nor is a guarantee to fix it either. Before spending time on your foam roller or lacrosse ball isn’t it worthwhile to learn where to apply it? Having an expert in identifying dysfunctional movement patterns is usually the best way to start.
Where do I start?
We believe the fitness and health care experts at Functional Movement Systems have their priorities correct. Their FMS Training Cycle states Identifying Correct Movement Patterns is the first step in fitness. Once we have done that we can determine where mobility techniques needs to be applied and when static or dynamic motor control exercises are appropriate. Then when we have all of that down, we can move into the final phase of the cycle which is performance.
Is the FMS a diagnostic test?
In order to apply corrective exercises based on the FMS Training Cycle, we need to find out where the real problem is steaming from. This does not mean the FMS will diagnose medical problems but it helps identify and categorizes individuals into three different groups. Individuals with:
- movement problems
- medical problems – this population is referred to the appropriate medical professional
- neither movement or medical problems.
The 1st group, people with movement problems, are most often helped by using corrective exercises to retrain their movement patterns.
After your Functional Movement Screen (FMS) you receive corrective strategies created by the Functional Movement Systems algorithm. Your strategies may include foam rolling, stretching or other mobility techniques of your movement patterns show they’re going to be beneficial.
Your pain affects your mobility
People often think that the pain they are feeling is where their problem is. Most of the time the person ends up compensating around the pain or the movement pattern. This creates other limitations within the basic movement patterns. The key to the training cycle is that you only move down the cycle as long as the movement pattern is improving. We check this by prescribing corrective exercises then re-testing the movement pattern and comparing the results to the baseline movement screen.
Schedule your Functional Movement Screen today!
Please call the office at 970-712-6059 to schedule your Functional Movement Screen with Alyssa our certified Functional Movement Screen provider.
The debate continues
Over the past few years there has been some negative feedback regarding corrective exercise. Therefore Brett Jones with the Functional Movement Systems discusses corrective exercise and the need for it as long we have a baseline for movement and a ‘why’ we are applying corrective exercises. Check out his podcast for his case against corrective exercise.