What is Functional Movement and how can it impact your life?

My aim with this blog is to help provide you with information about Functional Movement that you can then take away and look at ways in which you can create positive changes into your life. I hope that you enjoy reading.

Are there simple day-to-day movements that you avoid, or have trouble/ pain doing?

Do you want to move with less pain and feel better in your body?

Where in your body do you feel limited or restricted?

Where/ how would you like to move better?

With all of this in mind I thought I would share an email I received from one of my private clients. It demonstrates how implementing a movement practice into your life can create definite change.

Dear Sarah,

I felt impelled to let you know how much of an impact our private lessons are having on my life.

For many months I have been putting off simple tasks such as tidying the bottom drawer of my kitchen units and also clearing out my understairs cupboard due to the restriction and pain in my body. I have been unable to bend over to touch the floor to pick up the stuff that has collected at the back of the cupboard. I was also unable to spend long on my knees due to pain in my ankles and feet.

Today, I decided that I would face the task head on feeling confident that my movement had improved enough to at least try.

I am so very pleased to share that not only have I completed both tasks but I found that I was able to spend extra time on other jobs also. All of this has been done without taking a break and NO PAIN WHATSOEVER!!!

Thank you for helping me bring about such change in my life. It may not be very exciting to some but I am so happy with my own achievements. Committing to my movement practice has been the best investment. Thank you.

A.F.

This is the clear impact that moving well can have in your life. To me, this is so much more important than whether you can execute some crazy backbend or the splits. It may look beautiful and aesthetically pleasing but does it have any bearing over your day-to-day life? Probably not. Anyway, I digress, lets get into the nitty gritty of what functional movement actually is.

What is functional movement?

Functional movement is having the ability to move the body with freedom from pain and ease of movement. It is also involved in your day-to-day activities.

Moving your joints with a controlled range of motion will facilitate and keep them moving in optimal working order. The aim needs to be to move well from a place of strength and stability.

There are many factors that can have a direct impact on the loss of mobility, these being suboptimal posture, poor body mechanics, lack of use and injury.

When the range of motion becomes restricted or inhibited, the surrounding muscles will begin to compensate and thus, have a direct affect on the body’s biomechanics. The body is amazingly clever at learning how to adapt, even in ways that don’t actually serve us very well. Therefore, it is important to learn how to move well so that we can live a more fulfilled and joyful existence.

What are the benefits of functional movement?

Well, firstly, it is your god given right as a human being to live a life that is free from pain. You do not have to put up with pain in the body, especially within your movement practice.

The long term effects of poor body mechanics can ultimately challenge and put pressure on the body as a whole, not only affecting our movement, but every aspect of our life. We may find ourselves at a greater risk of injury and ill health.

Given the fact that we are all finding ourselves living amidst a pandemic, I believe that a larger percentage of us are now paying a lot more attention to our overall health and are keen to find ways in which we can keep ourselves strong and healthy. Movement can play a vital role in this.

The aim of functional movement is to bring about efficiency and become more balanced within your body. It will help you find more effective methods to move, whilst retraining the brain to spark new, zingy neural pathways. These neural pathways will challenge your proprioception (knowing where we are in space) through balance and so, so much more!!

Functional movement will nurture your ability to become more body aware. When we move in safe and sustainable ways you will develop a deeper sense of how it feels to move well with integrity.

Here are a few other positive benefits that you can gain from implementing a functional movement practice;

• Build strength within the joints and greater bone density.
• Helps you develop postural awareness so that you can find more effective ways to ‘hold’ yourself.
• Improved postural alignment. Better body alignment equates to increased wellness. Studies have shown that the way you position your body affects your stress hormones and neurotransmitters.
• Increased energy levels as a result of living in better postural alignment.
• Improved breath capacity (as a result from working on postural alignment) so that you have more space in your lungs to breath bigger, deeper breaths and ultimately helping you to reduce stress throughout the day.
• Overall improved sense of self-confidence. When we are living in good postural alignment we literally feel taller giving the appearance of greater confidence.
• Greater body control through learning how to move well with greater intention and awareness.
• Develops mindfulness.

‘Functional Movement’ versus ‘becoming more flexible’.

Many people come to a yoga class saying that they want to get more flexible. Whilst I fully understand and can relate to this, it is not strictly correct in the truest meaning of ‘flexibility.’

Let me help clear this up (with thanks and reference to my teacher Lara, in her words).

” Flexibility is movement available based on tissues surrounding the joint. Therefore, the tissues that surround it influence flexibility at a joint. “

You can also think of flexibility as the passive ability of your joint/ tissue to go into a range of motion. It does not use your neurological capacity for movement.

One of the most important things to consider is working within the specific joints range of motion and NOT pushing the surrounding tissues and ligaments into potentially injurious range of motion. It is therefore, vitally important to build strength within the muscles that work to support the joints. We do all of this within our functional movement practice.

Why is functional movement so important for you?

Whilst doing some research I found this wonderful analogy that sums up why we would all benefit from implementing some form of functional movement practice into our daily routine.

The water maintains its shape, thanks to the earth it flows through, but over time, the water can erode rocks, riverbanks. The same is true of our bodies. The environment we put our body into also starts to change our body. If our environment is walking on streets and floors that are all flat, level ground, that’s the shape that our legs and our feet start to conform to rather than what would be required in nature. (1*)

This basically means that if you are sat in a chair for several hours a day then your body will begin to take on the shape of how you are sit at your desk (think rounded shoulders, chin forward, disengaged core and rounded spine). When we finally leave our desk and opt for some form of movement, we take that ‘shape’ and lack of energy into our practise. Moving in this way will mean that we will be far behind the start line, out of balance and moving in suboptimal ways. In order to move well, we need to reset those imbalances and give ourselves the very best opportunity to win the race!

My hope is that you learn to find ways that improve and nurture your daily movement that nourish your life as a whole. With guidance you have the ability to move well and it’s NEVER too late to learn how to move better.

If you feel impelled to explore what functional movement can do for you then please get in touch. I would absolutely LOVE to help you.

Sarah xx

*1- Patrick Hogan – In aligned movement.