We would all prefer to have good mobility and move easily without pain whether our goal is to stay active, be more healthy or to increase our sports performance.

Human movement is a complex system and when we look at how this works, we begin to realise that a small imbalance in this complex system can cause pain and discomfort or lack of performance.

This system uses a huge amount of information from sensors in our eyes, ears, skin, muscles, tendons, joints and our reflexes to work properly. It turns out that very little of our movement is under conscious control. After the initial signal from your brain, even apparently simple movements like walking or picking up a cup of tea are reliant on your senses and reflexes.

3 of the most important factors in your ability to move well are:

• The Myotactic reflex which is often called the knee jerk reflex and will be familiar to anyone who has sat in a doctors office and had their knee tapped with a hammer and noticed how their foot involuntarily flies forward.
• The Withdrawal Reflex protects us from standing on sharp objects or touching something hot by causing us to pull away from the damaging sensory input. It is also the reflex that is in action when we are being tickled.
• The Law of Reciprocal Inhibition recognises the bodies innate ability to contract one muscle group whilst extending the opposing muscle. The easiest muscles to use as an example are the biceps and triceps, the muscles that move the elbow. Whenever we bend our elbow, the bicep contracts. As the bicep is contracting, messages are sent to the opposing tricep muscle to temporarily reduce its tone. The bicep is said to be facilitated, the tricep inhibited.

There are a number of things that can impair this system whether it is previous injury, misalignments in your spine, nutritional deficiency or even jewellery and dental work.

The good news is that we can assess the reflexive part of your nervous system and restore its normal function. The better the nervous system works the more responsive your reflexes are. This improves strength and resilience reducing the occurrence of injury so you can work and play at your best more of the time.

We would all prefer to have good mobility and move easily without pain whether our goal is to stay active, be more healthy or to increase our sports performance.

Human movement is a complex system and when we look at how this works, we begin to realise that a small imbalance in this complex system can cause pain and discomfort or lack of performance.

This system uses a huge amount of information from sensors in our eyes, ears, skin, muscles, tendons, joints and our reflexes to work properly. It turns out that very little of our movement is under conscious control. After the initial signal from your brain, even apparently simple movements like walking or picking up a cup of tea are reliant on your senses and reflexes.

3 of the most important factors in your ability to move well are:

• The Myotactic reflex which is often called the knee jerk reflex and will be familiar to anyone who has sat in a doctors office and had their knee tapped with a hammer and noticed how their foot involuntarily flies forward.
• The Withdrawal Reflex protects us from standing on sharp objects or touching something hot by causing us to pull away from the damaging sensory input. It is also the reflex that is in action when we are being tickled.
• The Law of Reciprocal Inhibition recognises the bodies innate ability to contract one muscle group whilst extending the opposing muscle. The easiest muscles to use as an example are the biceps and triceps, the muscles that move the elbow. Whenever we bend our elbow, the bicep contracts. As the bicep is contracting, messages are sent to the opposing tricep muscle to temporarily reduce its tone. The bicep is said to be facilitated, the tricep inhibited.

There are a number of things that can impair this system whether it is previous injury, misalignments in your spine, nutritional deficiency or even jewellery and dental work.

The good news is that we can assess the reflexive part of your nervous system and restore its normal function. The better the nervous system works the more responsive your reflexes are. This improves strength and resilience reducing the occurrence of injury so you can work and play at your best more of the time.

Assessment of children and teenagers developmental and functional movement patterns during sport ie. skipping hopping throwing etc. shows that mobility corresponds to growth periods and not to their age.

Coaches and parents can support their child’s future performance by encouraging all round athletic ability rather than specialising too soon. With the increase in use of technology and the knock on effect of sitting too much it is important to assess childrens ability to move properly and for them to develop the necessary movement skills.

The development of movement as a child is important for all aspects of cognitive behaviour – moving is how the child starts to learn about its environment and is the foundation for all learning