No….but, maybe, probably. We’ve just finished our Strength and Conditioning course for Physiotherapists and it’s been very revealing. The course was run by Dr Claire Minshull who is nationally renowned Physiotherapist with a special interest in Strength and Conditioning (S&C) who also conducts a lot of research into all things muscle and strength related.

The short answer is that being stronger helps…a lot. Your strength is essentially your fuel tank and by increasing your strength you increase the size of your fuel tank and from that fuel tank you can expect your muscles to produce more strength, for longer, more quickly. The more you have available the better your body will work. And, there are quicker (and shorter) ways of doing this. That involves the intensity, repititions and sets of exercises and the accuracy of the individual exercises prescribed.

There is a bit more to it than just picking the right exercise, performed in the right way at the right intensity and the correct number of times…. do your muscles and brain know when to use these muscles, can they coordinated them in an appropriate way? The analogy of an orchestra in relation to movement is quite apt. You may have all the right instruments there and playing but if they’re not in the right order, volume and pitch it may not sound like the symphony you were hoping for. I guess strength would be at least having all the instruments there and able to play the notes. Our brains coordinate the muscles a bit like the conductor to get that beautiful sound.

We have been re-jigging our Strength and Resilience (SAR) class a lot over the last 9 months with all of this in mind; ways of making sure we have muscle isolation, progression, compound and functional work to achieve our patient goals – more strength that they can access in the right pattern to make movement more efficient, and painless. If this sounds like something that might help you feel free to give us a ring and chat to one of us if you’d like some more information. You can book online here if you’d like an assessment specifically for the class or just to get that initial assessment to then decide which way is best for you.