Corrective Exercise for Body Fat Loss

BY: Alex Pennington | June 2023

Adaptation

Corrective exercise is just what it sounds like.  Exercise training focused on fixing a particular movement dysfunction.  Say you do Lunges and all you feel are your quadriceps muscles working and not the muscles of the glutes.  Corrective exercise would focus on how to get that person to use their Glute Max, thus fixing the lunge to be a better less damaging exercise on the body.  Otherwise, a quad loaded lunge will have the knees and hips get much of the load.  Or say you are doing pushups and you are only feeling your shoulders because your pecs are not present in the exercise.  Here there is potential damage to the shoulder musculature, like the rotator cuff, since it is being isolated.  Once again, we’d need to do corrective exercises in order to get your pecs engaging during the pushup.  So Corrective Exercise is a way to make an exercise and fitness routine to be more sustainable over a longer period of time, without damaging the joints and tendons. 

Another reason I use Corrective Exercise for my clients that want to lose body fat is because when done correctly it causes a large stressor on the body and mind.  Stress is what makes the body want to change. There is a reason why dysfunctions are so difficult to correct.  Because the muscles that aren’t engaging are very weak and over time our dysfunctional movement habits create atrophy in the muscles that are not properly working.  

Let’s go back to the example of the lunge, if I have a client who struggles to use their glutes during the exercise, I will have them make adjustments in the lunge until they can load their glute well.  Once the glute is loaded, the exercise because extremely difficult because now they are using a muscle that has most likely NEVER worked before in that position.  This can be very intense and stressful for that person because their glute is so weak.  In effect, the body makes neuromuscular connections with the glute and causes both the body and mind to adapt under this stimulus to the point where a hormonal response occurs.  The hormonal response sends signals all over the body and several of those(Growth hormone, Insulin-like Growth Factor, and thyroid hormones to name a few) help body fat burn more efficiently.  So, we have both the increased potential for new muscle growth(strength), new neuromuscular connections, and a hormonal response that helps get rid of excess fat on the body.

Application

So, are all Corrective Exercises equal?  Not at all.  This is when education and experience are necessary.  Every individual has a different set of dysfunctions and it may take different variations of a corrective exercise to fix a particular issue.  Also, corrective exercise takes a more integrative approach to building strength than your typical fitness exercises.  Most fitness routines rely on isolating muscle groups to build strength.  The problem with this is that all muscles are connected in some way to each other, so the more we isolate muscles the more damage we put on our bodies and joints begin to unnecessarily load.  

So, in our lunge example, getting the glute max to fire is prescribed in order for the muscle to work together(integrate) with the other surrounding muscles like the hamstrings, quads, and calves.  We are trying to build muscle systems to work together so that we don’t cause poor habits of overcompensating muscles.  The body should actually be completely proportional in order for it to be fully FUNCTIONAL.  Just imagine how challenging that idea is.  I’ll tell you from experience that fixing one dysfunction can be extremely exhausting for someone.  Fixing many dysfunctional muscles will change a person’s body in ways they never thought possible.  And during that time we are building lean body mass, and consistently getting rid of body fat.  Correcting dysfunctions is not easy, but that’s the point!  Our bodies won’t change because we are easy to it.  It will change under stressors, and that’s what fixing muscular dysfunctions is all about, it’s stressful(on the body).  But at the same time very rewarding what you get out of fixing your issues.  Feel better, move better, build strength, and lose body fat.

Functional Patterns

Functional Patterns is the most comprehensive system for fixing muscular dysfunctions.  It takes the whole body into account by applying principles that look into our gait cycle.  The gait cycle is how our body moves through walking, running, squatting, lunging, picking up objects, and any other movement you can think of.  There are patterns to these movements that are similar to one another, and Functional Patterns emphasizes the details within each one of those movements.  This can go from getting your glute to fire, to getting your jaw to move efficiently during an exercise.  The more detailed you get into Functional Patterns training, the more efficient you can make your body.  And if your goal is long term body fat loss, we need to make the exercise routine as sustainable and effective as possible.  

Recap

So, what works best for myself and my clients to reduce body fat and keep it off is through resistance and movement training that has a focus on corrective exercise techniques.  This seems to keep everyone physically healthy and provides enough of a stimulus to consistently challenge their bodies so that they can get the benefits of body fat loss while building useful strength.  I highly recommend looking into Functional Patterns and even finding a local practitioner that can give you the best results possible.  Because at the end of the day, it’s about getting results and it is far too easy to waste your time kicking the “weight loss can” down the road.