Personal trainers, athletic trainers, strength coaches, and physical therapists love to talk about "good form" when performing movements from squats and deadlifts to pushups and crunches to jump shots and corner kicks to back-handsprings and triple-axels. They talk about keeping your back straight or elbows in or foot locked or full rotation. But do these trainers, coaches, and therapists understand form follows function?
Here's a couple examples:
Here's a couple examples:
Example 1: This strength coach is talking about good form but look at his posture? Wide stance, feet abducted, sloping shoulders, and big hip disparity (seen by his right foot being more abducted and right knee valgus). No matter now much he focuses on "good form" in any movement his body will not be able to cooperate.
Imagine him doing a squat. His right knee will collapse toward the midline causing excessive stress on the lateral knee and medial ankle and hip. This stress if repeated or under enough load could cause injury to his ankle, knee, or hip.
He doesn't have the function to perform a squat with good form so matter how much he tries. He must focus on restoring his function to correct his posture and that will allow him to do any movement with good form.
Imagine him doing a squat. His right knee will collapse toward the midline causing excessive stress on the lateral knee and medial ankle and hip. This stress if repeated or under enough load could cause injury to his ankle, knee, or hip.
He doesn't have the function to perform a squat with good form so matter how much he tries. He must focus on restoring his function to correct his posture and that will allow him to do any movement with good form.
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Example 2: Here is a personal trainer from youtube. Notice how different her lunge looks with her left leg forward than when her right leg is forward. Why? Because form follows function and this is showing a big functional difference between her two hips.
| When doing the lunge with her left leg forward her foot is pointed straight ahead and her knee lines up over her foot to point straight ahead in-line with her hip. This is good form and will protect her knee from injury. Her torso can stay fairly centered over her hips as she creates good torso rotation to the left. | When she attempts to use "good form" with her right leg forward everything falls apart. Her right foot points out at 45 degrees and her knee tries to follow and rotates outward also. Notice how her torso doesn't rotate as far to the right but leans excessively and her left hand drops. This is all caused by an unstable right hip. |
These two examples are to demonstrate that no matter how aware and focused you are on "good form" while exercising, it will not matter if your function can't support the demand placed upon it. Form follows function. Bad form will always follow lack of function and good form will always follow good function. Restoring function will improve postural alignment which will allow proper form - throwing form, lifting form, running form, jumping form, etc.
If you are interested in improving your function to allow you to play and perform at your full potential, contact me for a free posture and function evaluation today!
Related articles:
Preventing ACL injuries
Cross-fit: How to survive injury free and achieve success
How shoulder posture affects running performance
Functional bodyweight workout
If you are interested in improving your function to allow you to play and perform at your full potential, contact me for a free posture and function evaluation today!
Related articles:
Preventing ACL injuries
Cross-fit: How to survive injury free and achieve success
How shoulder posture affects running performance
Functional bodyweight workout
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