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Getting stronger is corrective 

 •  • by Paul Ingraham
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Weekly nuggets of pain science news and insight, usually 100-300 words, with the occasional longer post. The blog is the “director’s commentary” on the core content of PainScience.com: a library of major articles and books about common painful problems and popular treatments. See the blog archives or updates for the whole site.

Tony Gentilcore wrote a terrific whimsical rant about how many people have come to believe that they need extremely specific and technical corrective exercises to address deficiencies in their pathetically flawed and vulnerable bodies:

As an industry – and I’ll call myself out on this too (particularly early in my career) – we’ve done a splendid job at helping people feel like a bunch of walking balls of fail:

  • Your shoulders and upper back are too rounded.
  • Yikes, your pelvis is anteriorly tilted.
  • Oh…my…god…we need to work on your scapular upward rotation.
  • Shit, your FABER screen tested positive. How are you able to walk?

It doesn’t surprise me in the least why so many people walk around thinking they’re fragile snowflakes who need to correct or “fix” everything before they do any appreciable training.

I stumbled across this post while immersed in writing about the same thing. I have been exploring the “corrective exercise trap” (see Tumminello et al) in updates to my shin splints book, stretching article, and (most thoroughly) in my guide to resistance training. It was fun and useful to come across this completely different (but completely compatible) approach to the topic.

Getting Stronger is Corrective

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