For both adults and children, it is critical to first have any posture defects or imbalances corrected before starting a strengthening program. If they are not corrected, the posture defects/imbalances may be made worse by strength exercises.
For example, if the athletes shoulders are rounded forward due to sitting at a desk all day and a bench press exercise is added to their program before correcting shoulder alignment, the shoulders will become more internally rotated.
This will cause impingement or excessive stress on the rotator cuff muscles, potentially causing injury and setbacks.
Postural Defects and Imbalances are caused by certain groups of muscles being too short or tight, which causes their attachments to get too close. In addition to this, other groups of muscles stretch excessively, which lead to their attachments separating further away from each other.
For muscles that are tight, exercises that begin from a fully stretched position and finish in a less than full contraction should be performed. For muscles that are over stretched, exercises should start from a shortened position and end in full contraction.
The next step of preparation is to make the connective tissue stronger without causing too much muscle soreness. This is developed by enhancing the blood supply with strength-endurance exercises. Muscular endurance is increased through improvements in local circulation and usually developed with sets of 20+ repetitions.
The final step of preparation for strength training is to develop sufficient strength of the muscles that provide a foundation (as stabilizers) for the muscles that are the prime movers in an exercise or movement. For structural exercises (e.g. squats, deadlifts) and sports such as kickboxing, this means strengthening the core (abdominals, obliques, lower back and glutes) first, because it stabilizes the vertebra to which the hips attach.
While planning targets in strength training, any present deficiencies (strength imbalance, structural defects, asymmetry, abnormal weakness) have to be treated first, followed by perfection of the technique in a given exercise.
