What are the special fitness programs?

The specialized fitness programs we often talk about are essentially targeted training programs designed around specific sports goals and the needs of specific groups of people. Currently, what the public has access to on a daily basis mainly covers three major directions: rehabilitation, competitive performance improvement, and adaptation to special groups. The segmented content has long penetrated into various fitness scenarios.

A while ago, I helped a man who had been running a marathon for five years find a training class. Due to his long-term incorrect landing posture, his ankle joint stability was very poor and it hurt after walking for a long time. What he looked for was a special class for ankle joint function reconstruction. It was not just ordinary stretching and relaxation. Each class required targeted movements such as single-foot balancing and resistance hooking. After two months of training, he was able to go back to running a half-marathon. Oh yes, the lower back release + core stabilization program that is most popular in studios around office buildings now also falls into this category, specifically dealing with lumbar muscle strain and anterior pelvic tilt caused by sitting for long periods of time. However, there has been controversy over the boundaries of this type of program in the industry. One group of practitioners believes that active functional training must be included in order to be considered a specialized fitness program. Pure passive relaxation can at most be considered a physical therapy category and cannot be classified as a fitness category.

After talking about rehabilitation, let’s talk about the competitive improvement specialties that enthusiasts are most exposed to. There are really various subdivision needs. Those who like to play badminton have a special one for explosive power transmission, and those who like to play basketball have a special one for vertical jump improvement. I even contacted an LPL youth training team in the past two years. Coach, their team has also opened a special fitness class for the players. Instead of training big muscles, they train the core anti-interference ability and fingertip control accuracy. They say it can reduce operational errors during team battles. Don't tell me, many children's operational hit rate has indeed increased by about 10% after practicing. Of course, some people think that this kind of specialization is an IQ tax. Ordinary enthusiasts can practice everything after playing two more games, so they can't afford to spend several times more money to take specialized lessons. However, I have a friend who has played badminton for three years. He never had the strength to kill the ball before. After practicing the specialization for a month, he can now smash the ball directly to the opponent's bottom line. He himself said that he has improved faster than before half a year of playing blindly.

There is also a type of special program that is specially adapted to special groups. The most common ones are pregnancy and childbirth specialization, adolescent posture correction specialization, and exercise intervention specialization for patients with chronic diseases. When my best friend was pregnant with her second child, she started attending special maternal and childbirth classes at 4 months pregnant, focusing on pelvic floor muscles and core control. During the birth, the labor process was almost 3 hours shorter than the first child, and there was no problem of urinary leakage after delivery. Nowadays, the scoliosis correction programs that many parents take their children to do also fall into this category. As long as they are practiced under the guidance of a certified rehabilitation practitioner, the improvement effect on mild to moderate scoliosis is much better than simply wearing a brace. Of course, there are also many elders who are biased against this type of special training. They feel that pregnant women, the elderly, and people who are sick should take a good rest. If problems arise, the gains outweigh the losses. However, the sports medicine community has basically reached a consensus that as long as the assessment is in place and the movements are adapted, the health benefits of special training for these people far outweigh the risks.

In fact, the boundaries of specialized fitness are still expanding. A while ago, I read that a studio has opened a "Special Wrist Protection Program for Heavy Weight Training Enthusiasts" to specifically solve the problem of wrist compensation pain when lifting irons. To put it bluntly, as long as you have clear segmentation needs, you can basically find corresponding special programs. There is no need to worry about whether it is orthodox or not. The program that can solve your problem is a good program.