I want to share with you the exact corrective exercises that I use with my athletes to reduce injury and overall, promote quality movement.
Let’s get into it.
Today I wanted to finally get a little more detailed about what corrective exercises I’m using and how I’m actually programming them for my athletes.
Correctives are administered on an individualized basis… strategically programmed to restore, balance, bring symmetry and reduce injury.
Overall this helps promote higher quality movement so the athlete’s performance out on the field or the court becomes optimal. When it comes to corrective exercise, it’s very important to remember that this is a very individualized process. Most of my athletes have some level of specific correctives they’ll have a plan to perform on themselves because every body is very different. However while I’m planning for a group workout, we can see some commonalities for the specific sport which helps me assign to the whole group. Now let’s get to how we’d add these in within the program.
How to program corrective exercises
I like to approach corrective exercise with mobilization and dynamic work first. Then we’ll get into our strength work by getting into a compound movement. These often come from your primal patterns otherwise known as push, pull, squat, hinge, and gait. Now that we’ve taken this multi-joint, integrated exercise throughout the entire body, we then want to pair or couple that with more of a fine movement pattern. This works through the general joint that could be compromised within that athletes sport.
Recovering during in season or off-season? I’ve done a few other sessions with great sports medicine doctors on specific protocols for injury that you can check out here:
Deadlift: For instance, if I’m performing a deadlift (which is a heavy, lower body compound exercise), I’ll typically work through the knee joint first using a specific progression.
Bench Press: If I’m hitting bench press, my goal would typically be to work on the antagonistic muscles such as the rear delts, plus thoracic to the cervical spine with pulling. I”ll also work on the rotator muscles through the actual arm. Here I might go in to warm up the elbows and wrists, getting a bit more finely tuned through the tendons and improve the overall structural integrity.
Squat: If I’m working on a squat, in order to reduce compensation in the knees, I might include something like a hip circle squat using bands to really force the athlete to access the hips and perform this same quality squat pattern once loading up the spine. Another example might be using a heavy reverse or lateral lunge paired with something to activate the lower limb. For this I like using the heel walk to activate the anterior tibias and achilles.
As a broad overview again here’s what we’re really trying to accomplish: that gross movement pattern can be paired with a fine movement pattern focusing on just a single joint exercise that’s typically compromised to increase structural integrity and reduce injuries. Not only does this allow the athlete to get some extra work done in between sets, but it usually balances out their rest period in between the more intense compound lifts.
Just wanted to show you guys how I program and what I’m focused on through both the upper and lower half of the body in order to include some more corrective exercises. Depending on your particular sport and movement, as well as your individual needs as an athlete, this routine will change. However from an overall standpoint, I recommend using corrective exercises throughout your strength training regime.
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