By Cierra Bloom, ATC, LAT, MS, CES
Reflexive Performance Reset or RPR is a self (or trainer) applied technique of breath and body work that is used to decrease pain and injury and to optimize performance. It is a simple combination of breathing and acupressure that treats imbalances in the muscular and nervous systems.
When muscles work together in sequence while fully activated, the body moves correctly. Athletic movements are sequenced chain-reactions. Muscle imbalances come when specific muscles become overactive or underactive due to daily stresses. These imbalances cause weak links in the chain of movement patterns, leading to improper sequencing, and sometimes to injuries. When the same compensation patterns are reinforced, injuries linger and recur. Compensation patterns are the main cause of non contact injuries in sport as well as everyday aches and pains that limit performance.
I bet you’re wondering, why does this matter to you if you are not an athlete? Athlete or not, your body has two priorities: to breathe and to move. To perform at our best, we need to do both properly. In a world of constant stress, our bodies find a way to meet those priorities by creating harmful compensation patterns. In this life, you are under constant stress, physically, mentally, and emotionally; which pushes your body into a state of survival. In this state, your body utilizes compensation patterns that limit performance and can lead to pain and thus injury.
Therefore, RPR is proactive. Just like Corrective Exercise, it helps evaluate a clients’ current physical state, but then implements breathing and acupressure before pain and injuries occur by resetting your body out of the survival state mentioned above.So how do you implement this? By using the RPR wake up drills that use specific reflex points, you can reset your own body out of these harmful patterns to reduce pain, increase flexibility, and become more resilient to injury.
Check out the PDF showing these wake up drills in a previous post! Because I believe RPR and Corrective Exercise go hand in hand, I do some of this in my Flexibility sessions, so sign up for one today if you want to learn more and try it out!
