Erin Boynton is an orthopedic surgeon and a highly accomplished athlete, having been ranked in the top 10 in the world in Masters Tennis. She has served as team doctor for the Toronto Blue Jays, Argonauts and Maple Leafs, the head medical doctor for Rogers Cup WTA tournament and the Canadian Billie Jean Cup tennis team medical doctor. She’s written an informative and easy to read book on how to get and stay healthy.
Her basic premise is:”live is motion” Many (most) people’s bodies break down by trying to build endurance, strength, power and speed on a broken or not established movement foundation.
It may take a long time to permanently remodel your foundation but the book gives five chapters of exercises which will e reap immediate benefits, and a weekly schedule of simple (not time consuming) exercises to keep your tissues healthy.
Phase 1 teaches how to establish a Foundation for Movement and Phase 2 shows you how to progress through the Performance Pyramid to return to sport or activity.
The four pillars of the foundation are alignment, active range of motion, tissue quality, and activation. Phase 1 is explained in Chapter 4, explaining what is meant by tissue quality (for example, do you have any strains), activation (are your muscles moving, activated when you move or turned off, allowing larger muscles to take over…too quad dominant for example), alignment (the smaller muscles allow us to maintain good body alignment) and active range of motion (good range while moving, not static stretching, and this includes end range of motion).
One chapter that resonates with me in particular is Chapter 2: Pain is the Body’s Voice (because I think as tennis players we all constantly ignore that one!). Another important premise is that rest alone is not always enough to heal an injury…you must address the reasons why the tissues were overly stressed from tight muscles to postural imbalances.
Phase 2 is explained in Chapters 5-9 go through the process of building your movement foundation by body area. You may not need help with all these areas, but there is a testing procedure to see how strong your foundation is from your neck to your toes.
Learn more here. (This includes a link to buy the book, which is also available at amazon.com (kindle and physical versions) and other booksellers.