PROGRESSION + REGRESSION

EXERCISE PROGRESSION/REGRESSION/MODIFICATION

If you have a workout scheduled or a particular exercise planned and there’s a movement you can’t do due to pain, injury, lacking some equipment needed or it is not placing enough demand on the body to gain any benefit then we then can do 1 of 3 things.

We can progress the movement, regress the movement or modify the movement.

If your body strength and development has progressed beyond the demands of the movement you can either increase the resistance/weight or you can add in an additional element of difficulty i.e. a balance factor, an additional plane of movement at the same time, the factor of gravity, speed, intensity, impact or reducing it to a unilateral movement i.e. 1 arm not both.

If we are injured or feeling pain during an exercise we can regress or modify it. We can remove an element, remove gravity, add in a limb, remove the balance challenge, remove the impact, reduce the intensity or reduce the load.

We can work around the injury/area, support the area (with other muscles) or we can avoid the area altogether depending on the severity of the injury and pain.