.
Wk 7_UNIT 11
RESTORE STRUCTURAL ALIGNMENT AND
STABILITY
TOPICS COVERED IN THIS UNIT
Restore Alignment and Stability
Step #1: Correct Breathing and Ribcage Alignment
Step #2: Teach Your Client to Bear Down
Step #3: Align the Pelvis
Step #4: Facilitate Trunk Stability
Step #5: Facilitate Postural Stability
Putting It All Together
What You’ll Learn
In this unit, you’ll learn how to put your client’s body in better
alignment and improve postural control from head to toe. We’ll
begin by covering the components of breathing and how it can
affect posture and movement. Then you’ll learn the important roles
of the pelvis and how to correctly align it. We’ll cover the way your
client can significantly increase intra-abdominal pressure followed
by a simple exercise to facilitate trunk stability. Finally, you’ll learn
a novel exercise that increases postural stability throughout the
upper and lower extremities. By the end of this unit, you should
have a clear understanding of the ways to assess and correct total
body alignment and stability.
RESTORE ALIGNMENT AND STABILITY
The human body functions as one interconnected machine that’s
formed by many individual parts. One or more of those parts being
out of alignment or not functioning correctly can negatively affect
the entire system and disrupt normal movement mechanics.
If your client is struggling with, say, an overhead press, it’s easy to
assume there’s a problem at the shoulder. There might be, and we’ll
cover those assessment and corrective strategies in the next unit.
But in many cases, the source of the problem could be much farther
1
, away. That’s why this unit focuses on putting your client’s entire
body back into alignment.
Throughout Section Two of this course, it’s been emphasized that
the goal of corrective exercise programming is to take all possible
measures to keep the most beneficial exercises in your clients’
programs. Your clients benefit most by spending their time and
energy doing multi-joint functional exercises to build strength,
muscle, and cardiovascular endurance. Of course, single-joint
exercises have their place, too. Regardless of the exercise in
question, the point here is clear: nobody wants to lie on the floor
and do foam roller drills unless it’s absolutely necessary.
That’s why we spent so much time covering the necessary steps to
perform a movement analysis for simple and complex exercises.
Those steps developed your understanding of what an exercise
requires along with the relevant cues to correct whatever is wrong.
In some cases, however, no amount of biomechanics training or
cueing in the world will be enough to allow your clients to perform
certain functional movements correctly. Sometimes a person will be
too far out of alignment, whether due to a rotated pelvis or flared
ribcage or some other compensation. In other cases, a person will
not be able to create enough intra-abdominal pressure to stabilize
the trunk. Therefore, interventions beyond cueing are in order.
To be clear, the goal remains the same. You want to keep the squat,
row, deadlift, overhead press, and other functional exercises in your
client’s program. Therefore, we won’t assume that regressing to
stretches, foam rolling, or isolation exercises are the solution at this
time. Instead, we’ll respect the fact that the human body functions
as one interconnected machine. We’ll use five corrective strategies
to restore full-body alignment and stability, which in turn,
improves your client’s ability to perform virtually any exercise.
Before we get to those correctives, let’s clarify what improve actually
means.
On one hand, your client will perform an exercise with better
technique, which means that he can fulfill the critical events
without compensating. Or at the very least, the client will be closer
to achieving the critical events with fewer compensations. That is
progress.
2
Wk 7_UNIT 11
RESTORE STRUCTURAL ALIGNMENT AND
STABILITY
TOPICS COVERED IN THIS UNIT
Restore Alignment and Stability
Step #1: Correct Breathing and Ribcage Alignment
Step #2: Teach Your Client to Bear Down
Step #3: Align the Pelvis
Step #4: Facilitate Trunk Stability
Step #5: Facilitate Postural Stability
Putting It All Together
What You’ll Learn
In this unit, you’ll learn how to put your client’s body in better
alignment and improve postural control from head to toe. We’ll
begin by covering the components of breathing and how it can
affect posture and movement. Then you’ll learn the important roles
of the pelvis and how to correctly align it. We’ll cover the way your
client can significantly increase intra-abdominal pressure followed
by a simple exercise to facilitate trunk stability. Finally, you’ll learn
a novel exercise that increases postural stability throughout the
upper and lower extremities. By the end of this unit, you should
have a clear understanding of the ways to assess and correct total
body alignment and stability.
RESTORE ALIGNMENT AND STABILITY
The human body functions as one interconnected machine that’s
formed by many individual parts. One or more of those parts being
out of alignment or not functioning correctly can negatively affect
the entire system and disrupt normal movement mechanics.
If your client is struggling with, say, an overhead press, it’s easy to
assume there’s a problem at the shoulder. There might be, and we’ll
cover those assessment and corrective strategies in the next unit.
But in many cases, the source of the problem could be much farther
1
, away. That’s why this unit focuses on putting your client’s entire
body back into alignment.
Throughout Section Two of this course, it’s been emphasized that
the goal of corrective exercise programming is to take all possible
measures to keep the most beneficial exercises in your clients’
programs. Your clients benefit most by spending their time and
energy doing multi-joint functional exercises to build strength,
muscle, and cardiovascular endurance. Of course, single-joint
exercises have their place, too. Regardless of the exercise in
question, the point here is clear: nobody wants to lie on the floor
and do foam roller drills unless it’s absolutely necessary.
That’s why we spent so much time covering the necessary steps to
perform a movement analysis for simple and complex exercises.
Those steps developed your understanding of what an exercise
requires along with the relevant cues to correct whatever is wrong.
In some cases, however, no amount of biomechanics training or
cueing in the world will be enough to allow your clients to perform
certain functional movements correctly. Sometimes a person will be
too far out of alignment, whether due to a rotated pelvis or flared
ribcage or some other compensation. In other cases, a person will
not be able to create enough intra-abdominal pressure to stabilize
the trunk. Therefore, interventions beyond cueing are in order.
To be clear, the goal remains the same. You want to keep the squat,
row, deadlift, overhead press, and other functional exercises in your
client’s program. Therefore, we won’t assume that regressing to
stretches, foam rolling, or isolation exercises are the solution at this
time. Instead, we’ll respect the fact that the human body functions
as one interconnected machine. We’ll use five corrective strategies
to restore full-body alignment and stability, which in turn,
improves your client’s ability to perform virtually any exercise.
Before we get to those correctives, let’s clarify what improve actually
means.
On one hand, your client will perform an exercise with better
technique, which means that he can fulfill the critical events
without compensating. Or at the very least, the client will be closer
to achieving the critical events with fewer compensations. That is
progress.
2
