This is a great question and without doubt would be the one I am asked the most from people who are following one of our Online Rehabilitation programs for Knee Pain, Back Pain and Piriformis Syndrome. Unfortunately the answer is not as easy as saying, "after 4 weeks change it". The workouts are really a series of tests for you to learn and develop perfectly to prepare you for a more challenging program that will provide more skills and building blocks to change what created your pain in the first place. To know when to progress will be determined by your body's adaptation and recover to the challenges you are exposing it to. In this article I will provide many examples from each of the most common programs. This is also not limited to rehab as we adopt these same principles with sports performance in order to prepare the athlete for superior skill development.

In my 16 years as a trainer specializing in rehabilitation and teaching people the principles of core strength and functional movement skills the most common injury I have seen is a Bulging Disc. An extremely painful injury that can significantly alter your daily life and take a long time to recover from. Some people come to me after years of severe pain, surgery, on all types of medication that not only did not help them but also ended up giving them side affects to new problems. This condition can really knock you down and give you a beating both physically and mentally if the right strategy from the outset is not adopted. While we have all heard about severe damage to backs which can occur because of lifting something too heavy, like a deadlift in the gym or moving a fridge in your house. Most back pain episodes, and in particular bulging disc injuries are the result of everyday activities, postures and sports movements, involving repetition and small to moderate forces. Over time, these add up to produce pain and stiffness. When in pain our instant reaction is to find something to get out of pain, and while this makes sense and obviously needed, is not the solution to the real problem. This process is only step one in a process of many if you want to get rid of pain for good and avoid it in the future. Unfortunately as we are so conditioned into treating symptoms this is where many people stop their rehabilitation program. Once the pain is removed they go back to their life this time making some adjustments to their lifestyle, (no longer doing gym, or changing jobs) to avoid being hurt again. This now sets you up for more injury as you begin to move in compensatory ways. In this article we are going to provide you with some tips on what to look for and how to change these compensations.

Many people are not big fans of the lunge and the main reasons are, that is hard to do and that it really hurts your muscles quite quickly leaving you with the muscle soreness for days afterwards. However, if I could only do one exercise, it would be the lunge, and this article I will show you why. The strength gains you get from just a few sets of these is incredible but the benefits to your body are much more than just stronger legs. When people ask me "why do I need to do lunges" or even worse, "I have been told lunges are bad for your knees and not to do them". I then explain that without the lunge you lose your ability to move efficiently and will not be able to get up off the floor! Meaning that getting out of bed or being able to get to ground as much as get back up, now is going to become impossible. If you don't believe me try for yourself to get up off the ground onto your feet without using what looks like a lunge stance at any point. You will need to have some gymnastic skills to do this without the lunge. But how does this happen and why does it seem to hurt much more than other leg exercise like squats, the leg press or even step ups? The reason is due to poor posture, meaning the lunge is actually correcting your poor posture. Which brings me to my first reason why lunges are so important to fitness success.