Movement Pattern Retraining and Motor Control Principles
Domain 7 - Movement Pattern Retraining and Motor Control Principles
Corrective exercise only becomes retraining when the nervous system is asked to produce the pattern cleanly. The exam tests principles of motor learning applied to the failing pattern: specificity, dose, cueing, progression and the discipline to stop at the first compensation.
Core principles
- Specificity: train the pattern that failed, in the position and range where it failed, not a distant strengthening exercise.
- Quality before load, range or speed: three clean repetitions beat fifteen sloppy ones.
- Proximal stability for distal mobility: establish trunk and pelvic control before adding arm or leg range.
- External focus: cue the outcome ("knee over the second toe", "push the floor away") rather than naming a muscle.
- Submaximal effort and breathing: a held breath and a grimace signal a compensation strategy, not training.
- Motor learning dose: many short, frequent bouts of low-level work; keep success where the client can still self-correct.
Progression ladder
Support (doorway, wall, dowel) → unsupported → range → speed → load → complexity → environment (eyes closed, uneven surface). Move one rung at a time and retest the top-tier pattern at each step.
Worked example
Single-leg stance is DN on the left with hip drop and trunk sway. Retrain in the doorway with fingertip support, 3 sets of 5 per side, exhaling on the hold, cue "tall and long, knee over the second toe". Progress by removing support, then adding time, then eyes closed, then an uneven surface. Retest single-leg stance at two weeks; if hip drop returns, drop back a rung rather than adding repetitions.
Traps that cost marks
- Cueing "squeeze the glute" and turning pattern work into a single-muscle drill.
- Training to failure and rehearsing the compensation.
- Progressing load while the pattern is still dysfunctional.
- Changing several variables at once so improvement cannot be attributed.