5 Reasons to Prioritize Corrective Exercise

When most people hear “corrective exercise,” they think of injury recovery or physical therapy. And while that’s not exactly wrong, they only scratch the surface of corrective exercise’s ability to help athletes and active people come back stronger.

The problem is that most active people don’t do enough corrective exercise. Many skip it altogether. And that would be a huge mistake.

So, if you know you should be doing more corrective exercise and mobility training than you are, but you can’t find the time, don’t worry.

I’m going to give you five good reasons to prioritize corrective exercise.

5 Reasons to Prioritize Corrective Exercise

1. It's the Best Way to Prevent Pain and Injuries in the Future

Did you know that the term “prehab” refers to corrective exercise?

The idea is that by performing these exercises proactively, you can leverage the same physical therapy principles that help rebuild your body after an injury to help prevent injuries or setbacks in the future.

In other words, corrective exercise helps you build resilience when it stands to benefit you most.

2. It's Mentally Stimulating

Corrective exercise might not look like much, but there are many moving parts to master to perform the movements properly.

This makes it very engaging and mentally stimulating.

If you think corrective exercise looks like just lying on the floor stretching for 20 minutes, I challenge you to try it. Then let me know if it’s more mentally stimulating than steady-state cardio or even a typical resistance training session.

3. It Trains Your Central Nervous System

Again, corrective exercise might look easy to most gym-goers. However, it produces a very intense central nervous system response.

If performed correctly, you will burn calories. You will sweat. And you will be stressing your body in a totally different way than a traditional resistance training session.

This is the type of good stress that makes your central nervous system pay attention.

4. It Turns Weakness into Strength

Corrective exercise is the shortest path to building strength and muscle.

You’ve heard the expression, “you’re only as strong as your weakest link.” It’s the central idea of constraint theory.

Sure, you might have a big, puffy chest. But if your rotator cuff tendons are weak or don’t have endurance, it’s going to limit your pressing strength. This is true for every joint system in your body.

If you’re stuck in a plateau or simply want to get stronger faster, corrective exercise can help take your performance to a new level in a matter of weeks.

5. It's Fun!

Being active is supposed to be fun. And when you pick the right corrective exercises and consistently perform them properly, you’ll see it translate into better performance in other movements and exercises.

Beyond just progressing, the workouts are super engaging. They also tend to fly by.

This makes corrective exercise an extremely valuable and high-leverage tool to have at your disposal.

Final Thoughts

If you aren’t familiar with it, corrective exercise can be easy to dismiss as boring or easy. But when you do it consistently and properly, corrective exercise is the highest-leverage exercise you can do.

I challenge you to commit to trying it for a few weeks and seeing the results for yourself.

If you’re not sure where to start, or you're tired of the same boring stretching routines, check out my award-winning, best-selling book, Built From Broken.

In it, you’ll discover exactly how to build your program around corrective exercise to optimize strength and resilience rather than relying on doing the bare minimum to get by.

Click the button below to learn more about Built From Broken.