Z-Heath: The movement ABC's

May 1, 12:36 PMSan Diego Fitness ExaminerLou McGovern

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Each of us is responsible for our own health, but with so much conflicting information available, how do we choose the best path to achieve and maintain health? Practitioners of the Z-Health Performance System believe they have an answer.

Z-Health teaches what Dr. Eric Cobb, the creator of the system, calls the “alphabet of movement” through a series of precise joint mobility exercises. The premise being: due to injury, lack of use, or uncoordinated movement, people lose the function of some of their moving parts, this is known as Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA). SMA causes compensations in movement patterns because some parts have to work double time to make up for non-functioning pieces. In other words, lost letters from the movement alphabet. It becomes difficult to spell words such as squat, roll, lunge, swing, run, play, etc, when we do not have command over all of the letters of our movement alphabet; and if we are missing some letters, those healthy movements may actually be unhealthy.

Movement that is non optimal may be stressful. Most of us exercise to combat stress and to fend off the unwanted effects of aging. Exercising (or any other type of movement) with missing letters loads compensations and can increase stress and the things that we associate with getting old. For instance, a tennis player lacking foot and ankle mobility will not be able to utilize her hips fully while during a volley causing her to overwork her shoulder or arm. The stress of overworking her arm may result in arm pain, or she just may not be able to keep up with the competition, either way the stress caused by immobile feet and ankles will affect her movement and her participation in her sport. She will be unable to continue a “healthy” activity because of an incomplete movement alphabet.

Our health relies on movement. If our heart or lungs stop moving, we perish; if our blood stops circulating, tissue dies; we all know that. We also know about the importance of exercise, what we often forget is that if we move better, our exercise will be better for us and get us the results we want. Becoming better at moving requires that we master the basics; mastering the basics is the foundation of a Z-Health practice, and also means that we’ll never have to quit playing.