Our programmes focus on injury prevention first, and performance second. If you have an injury or even niggle of some kind, the simple fact is that you are not going to be able to perform at anywhere near your best levels, and will likely go on to
develop some kind of longer term weakness in the injured area.
This is the opposite of how many places see people, and I would include sports teams in that too.
This is another reason why I don’t do classes, too many different abilities in one class lead to guesswork, and making assumptions that the weakest members of the class can keep up with the strongest can be a dangerous game.
If someone has a problem, for example, a calf, heel, hamstring, knee, hip problem, any of them, they have to be addressed before you move that person on to bigger and more dynamic movements.
Ignoring a problem only shifts more problems on to other areas of the body. If you don’t teach individuals how to move properly, one part of the body usually overworks more than the area of the body that should be working.
Everyone who has trained with me will know the series of tests and movement ranges we go through all the time. It’s good to be paranoid about not having injuries in your programme, and to make sure preventative steps are in place so that the risk of those I am training getting injured is relatively low.
A problem that starts off in the heel may easily transfer into the hips for instance. Not addressing the heel problem properly will have caused a smaller problem to become a much bigger problem. Analyzing movement in the first place would have solved the problem, and the athlete now would have been very likely moving freely and without pain now.
Of course, the performances of our members is of paramount importance each and every day, but FIRST they have to be injury free and be able to move in many different ways PAIN FREE before they attempt any big performance. Exercise can be a valuable medicine to help you become pain free and become a top performer.
