Why the Functional Movement Screen?
A while back, my buddy Betsy asked me to shed some light on some specific topics. So the next few blogs you see by me are all by request 🙂 I hope these help and feel free to reach out to any of your coaches for additional information.
Why the Functional Movement Screen?
You may wonder why we are the only gym in Concord that requires a specific movement assessment before ever stepping foot onto our training floor. I will answer this as brief and direct as possible. The reason why we screen is because it is the ONLY way we can train YOU as an individual. If we didn’t screen you, we’d be taking a HUGE gamble. Each of you come from a different background of previous injury and current aches and pains. If we don’t assess then we guess and THAT is a recipe for disaster. You want personal training in a group setting? You’ve got it. This screen shows us how you move and based on how you move we can determine which exercises are safe for you right now and which exercises have the potential to hurt you. You may not even realize it and the screen and specific exercises may not hurt you while you are doing them, but we have to keep in mind this is a long term game. Our mission is to get you to where you are trying to go safely. If you are hurt, then there is a possibility you won’t be able to train at all. We have to weigh the risk vs. reward and be smart about how we train you.
What do the bands mean?
I will keep this brief and direct as well. Each band is associated with a different screen we took you through. 7 screens, 7 different colored bands. In a group setting any coach can look at your wrist and say that exercise is safe and that exercise is not safe. Remember, our focus is to keep you training hard, but not hurting you along the way. Wear your bands! They are to keep you safe. Don’t try and be sneaky, because you are not going to be happy when you are hurt!
What are personalized warm ups?
Each screen has an associated personalized warm up (you may have heard it referred to as corrective exercise). The purpose of the personalized warm up is to help improve that movement pattern. We do a lot of the exercises during our group warm ups, but the expectation for optimal results is to do those exercises at home as well. You can never do enough mobility and flexibility work. That’s why it is important that you get to training on time and avoid leaving early! We have videos and handouts for each personalized exercise so if you forget yours or lose it, then ask a coach and we will get that to you! If we didn’t think it was important then we wouldn’t talk about it!
How do I get out of bands?
There are several ways to do this! The first way is to do your personalized exercises, get to training on time and stay through the hour, take warm up and cool down seriously, be engaged, don’t try to sneak in exercises that are not appropriate. I will add to that last one…if you try and do an exercise that isn’t appropriate for you then you are not only taking a huge risk of getting hurt, but it does no good to load a partial range of motion (ie: squats, split squats). We need to get that full range of motion before adding load.
Should shedding bands be a goal?
Yes, absolutely. We HIGHLY recommend rescreening every 3 months (there are sign ups out each week for this). The functional movement screen is a measuring point and we want to see you shed those bands just as much as you want to ditch them!
Make it happen,
Coach Meagan