Custom Fit Exercise®

Definition

The continual process of strategically manipulating exercise in order to create the optimum and appropriate physical challenge based upon an individual’s current internal abilities, limitations, and tolerances as influenced by his/her idiosyncratic structure, tension production capacities, contractile control, awareness, and currently accustomed level of activity as well as any pathology that may directly or indirectly affect the above.

Importance in Exercise

Exercise has always been and continues to be a one-size-fits-all industry. Even “personal training” is plagued with protocols and choreography wherein a person is required to follow the arbitrary, tradition-based, or sport-influenced “rules of exercise” rather than every aspect of an exercise being modified to meet the specifics of the individual.

Often exercise is said to be “scaled down” for an individual by reducing load or speed. While these adjustments are potentially better than none at all, they are sorely superficial and do not begin to scratch the surface of the factors that could and should be manipulated as standards of professional practice.

Custom Fit Exercise is 100% “Client-Defined”.

The specific parameters of an exercise cannot be predetermined. All of the information that influences exercise execution from person to person, day to day, set to set, and even rep to rep reside within the individual. He/she does not choose the parameters of the exercise. They are dictated by his/her body.

Exercise decisions start with two primary questions: “for whom?” and “what is his/her goal?”

The answers to these questions will confront every generalization in exercise. They turn generic exercise into custom exercise.

Examples

Factors to strategically consider and/or manipulate: each is part of the constant and continual trial and error process of detailed rep by rep assessment

Effort

These factors are influenced by:

Misconceptions

Traditional “Rules of Exercise” Client-Defined Parameters
Bench press range: touch bar to chest Lower bar to range dictated by shoulder joint
Squat to parallel Range dictated by structural proportions, available range in hip, knee, and ankle, and control
Never lock out Depends upon the joint status, direction of resistance, speed, and control
Knees should never move in front of toes The knees’ relationship to the line of force is the real issue and this is not solved in lunges or wall squats by the knee-toe relationship.
Good posture is important and there is an ideal that is called neutral. Posture is not a static thing and is poorly represented by the external shape of the body.Posture may be structurally influenced, but if not, is often simply a matter of choice vs. habit. Forcing one into “ideal” can be his/her extreme “locked” position, therein limiting all other motions. Tension & weakness are rarely influences in posture.
20 minutes of cardio is ideal. Duration should be progressive and based upon one’s currently accustomed activity level. “Aerobic’ is not necessarily the optimal form of cardio for many, and potentially most people.
Align the knee by aligning the femur with the foot The foot is a poor reference point for knee joint alignment. The relationship between the contact surfaces of the tibia and the femur are the only accurate means of assessment. Structural differences between the top and bottom of the tibia itself can make the foot appear as much as 30 degrees inward or outward when the knee is optimal aligned.