Worried About Injury?

Written by: Krista Reader

How do you know that your body is ready to start a fitness regimen?  Jumping into an exercise routine without making sure that your body is ready can sometimes result in injury.  To ensure that our clients are ready to go, we conduct an extensive fitness and nutrition assessment, and we thought it might be useful to share with you why this is so important.  There are many different versions of these types of assessments, but we have found that the top 5 evaluations that give us the best overall snapshot of a client’s health are:     

• Body fat and body mass index (BMI)
• Aerobic fitness and metabolic assessment (V02 Max)
• Total body power and endurance assessment
• Nutritional assessment
• Functional Movement Screen (FMS)

 As a kickoff to a multi-part series on fitness health, we wanted to share some information with you today on the importance of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS).

Ask yourself the following questions, if you answer “yes” to any of them, please keep reading!

• Is one side of your body stronger than the other?
• Do you feel pain or stiffness in your back after sitting for extended periods of time?
• When reaching your arms overhead, do you feel pain or impingement?
• Is it a challenge to touch your toes without bending at the knee?
• Do you work out through minor or serious pain?

Everyone has imbalances, but if they affect your basic levels of movement then there is a good chance that you will experience discomfort, pain and injury.  It is imperative that your body is free of these imbalances and capable of moving without restrictions before starting any exercise or conditioning program.  

As a balanced, mobile body is essential to fitness success, the Functional Movement Screen is a simple and measurable method of evaluating basic movement abilities. The test is comprised of 7 fundamental movement patterns. Through these 7 tests, a certified trainer should be able to identify any weaknesses, mobility issues, and imbalances between the left & right sides of the body.  Demonstrated below is one of the 7 tests we conduct, the Lunge Test.

As you can see, by pinpointing these weak links, we can then prescribe to our clients a corrective program that will get the body moving how it was meant to move. After addressing these issues, you can then have greater movement efficiency, which will then lead to an increase in strength and performance.  Most importantly, this will decrease the risk of injury.  You must first have function before fitness.

If you would like any further information on this type of assessment, or hear more about what we can do for you, please contact us here.