Exercise is defined as a type of physical activity consisting of planned, structured, and repetitive bodily movement done to improve and/or maintain one or more components of physical fitness (American College of Sports Medicine).
Therapy and exercise is an important and essential component of everyone’s life, including our kids. Exercise creates a foundational adaptation for functional movement. Fitness is a broad term which can be broken down into many components, and can be adapted to fit the needs of anyone. Some of the components include; muscle fitness, muscle strength, joint range of motion, body awareness, cardiorespriatory fitness, endurance, physical abilities and walking distance.
Within our intensive therapy there are 3 main categories of fitness, ready for movement, learning the movement and the performance level of movement. Overall therapy can assist to create the foundations, to allow higher level of functional movements.
All of the categories and components banded together is what help our kids to learn new motor functions. The process of repetition and doing the movement allows for learnt motor control movements, while also increasing all of the above mentioned components of fitness. A mixture of increased motor control and fitness allow each individual to progress their functional movement needs, whether that be rolling, crawling, walking, assisting with tasks, feeding, the list is endless.
Overall, the more we move, the more repetitive movements, the more strength and adaptation can be gained from regular intensive therapy and exercise.
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