How do you know whether an exercise is helping or hindering a client?

As you’re helping a client move toward her goal, do you ever feel like you’re throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping something sticks? 

Years ago, I remember having that feeling.  I’d do my due diligence to keep a client’s health history in mind, aim to mitigate risk vs. reward, only to hit a wall, when the strategies I implemented didn’t bear advantageous results for the client.  

Now, I have a system, the Integrative Movement System™ to be exact.

This is a framework for discovering a client’s suboptimal posture and movement strategies, followed by a framework for addressing these strategies and training them to be more optimal ones; then, tertiarily integrating them into functional movement exercise patterns to move clients toward their goals.  Now, I no longer feel as though I’m throwing spaghetti at a wall in hopes that something will stick.  There is a solid plan with space for maneuvering as needed, and it works. 

I ask you, how do you know whether an exercise is helping or hindering a client?  

You assess. 

This is important for any client’s program. Because my segments’ focus has been centered around perimenopause & menopause, it is especially important as those hormones can have greater degrees of fluctuation than in previous years.  This means day to day can change for the perimenopausal/menopausal client.  An exercise that was appropriate yesterday might not be appropriate today and could likely be appropriate again next week.  Do an assessment before and after the exercise to determine whether it’s helping or hindering your client today.

To discover what assessments you can use with your clients who are experiencing perimenopause/menopause, register for the upcoming webinar Best Exercises for Clients Experiencing Perimenopause/Menopause.  For more details, click here.

All the best,

Sara's Segment