Own Your Dysfunction

I believe it was Master RKC Jeff O’Connor who coined the phrase “own your dysfunction”. To me this simply means discover your limitations or weaknesses, accept them, wisely work within them… not against them, and work to improve them. For example, it is common to for someone with sore knees or sore lower back to say squats are dangerous because they hurt my (insert body part here), this is not owning your dysfunction. Owning your dysfunction requires a slight shift in viewpoint. Instead of blaming the lift, perhaps you should blame your technique. More often than not the truth is Squats aren’t bad for YOUR knees, the way YOU squat is bad for YOUR knees.

Another concept I learned from the RKC and CK-FMS is that Good Training involves finding your weaknesses and improving upon them. This aspect of training is the most humbling and most overlooked or just plain avoided all together. It is always easy to ignore our weaknesses and train our strengths because that is what makes us feel strong and makes us look cool. An experienced athlete knows that the team is only as strong as its weakest member, an athlete’s body is no different. If your hips are tight and you insist on never stretching them your body will begin to compensate for your weakness and other body parts will neglect their responsibilities in an attempt to pick up the slack. Master RKC Brett Jones likes to say that the hips are bad neighbors… meaning that dysfunctional hips will often lead to knee or lower back problems. Our hips are supposed to be mobile… if they are not your lower back or knees will try overcompensate and move in ways the body was not intended to. One reason I am so sold on the Functional Movement Screen is that it offers a clear, objective and consistently reproducible way of indentifying an individual’s weakest movement pattern AND….. it offers a proven method of correcting it which leads to safer training and improved performance.

If you are big enough to own your dysfunction and do what it takes to reach the next level of performance I am here to help. The Functional Movement Screen and the RKC are the perfect combination for improving your quality of movement.