How to injury-proof your body
Stephen Heard tries functional movement and unlocks the key to pain-free performance.
The stretches were deep, often long-held, and stimulated pleasant pain and muscle shaking...
Your current workout regime probably takes place in an exceptionally stimulating environment as you perform to the point of being red-faced, sweat-drenched and veiny. While that’s a perfectly reasonable way to reach certain goals, it’s not necessarily the best environment to listen to your body. Functional training is the science behind movement to help you move better, feel better and avoid injury. I had a consultation at Auckland’s Energy n Motion to find out what it’s all about. It’s taken Jane Matthews over 20 years to understand the science behind the body; I’d be trying to soak up as much as possible in an hour. Energy n Motion is New Zealand’s only neurophysics facility and attracts clients from around the country and worldwide. I’m a regular runner, and for this training session we’d be looking at my weight distribution, body alignment and muscle asymmetry under both normal and hypoxic conditions (at altitude) to improve my performance and efficiency – the simulated environment allows you to train with a much lower workload to minimise the stress on the body.
To start, I jumped on a manual self-powered treadmill that uses a curved running platform. As I performed at a steady pace, Jane examined my posture and running style. Her diagnosis came back that I’m slightly off-balance and my left shoulder has a tendency to creep up, which could be a fight or flight reaction, the result of stress, working habits (as I type this sinking into a chair), or all of the above. She suggested some tiny adjustments: dropping my shoulder, applying more weight on my right small toe, moving my right foot out ever so slightly and running with less exertion. During the re-run, my irritating shin sensation disappeared.
Next, we moved to the on-site altitude room – a sizeable enclosure that can recreate Everest base camp conditions. It was set at 3200 metres, a comfortable height to be physically active and with an appropriate reduction of oxygen. Starting heart rate: 80 beats per minute. We worked through a combination of yoga and pilates movements with meticulous PAULO SENA instruction around the placement of every single limb. The stretches were deep, often long-held, and stimulated pleasant pain and muscle shaking – something Jane suggested was a result of the environment. Heart rate: 97bpm. Back on the treadmill I had noticeably relaxed since the first session and the running felt far easier. At sprinting pace, with my new alignment and weight distribution, my heart rate crept up to a considerable 169bpm, though the training felt far easier than it should have. Jane suggested if I stuck to my new alignment and running recommendations I could probably run all day. The are several reasons why you should take a breather from your usual workout regime to try functional movement. The science is a great way to streamline your technique to get the best results and avoid injury. Training in a simulated hypoxic environment has several proven benefits, including increasing metabolism and athletic performance and relieving the symptoms of asthma, anxiety and diabetes. It takes an average of four weeks to gain all the physiological benefits of altitude training. Effectively, the reason you’re doing functional movement is to take the risk out of the equation. If there’s anything to worry about it’s that you’ll become obsessed with perfect alignment in future exercise. energynmotion.nz