Revolutionary Techniques
ELDOA
The Ultimate Method to Change Your Life
What Is ELDOA?
ELDOA is a French acronym used to describe the stretching/strengthening technique developed by French osteopath Guy VOYER D.O. The translation is: LOADS (Longitudinal Osteo-articular Decoaptation Stretches) which are postural self-normalizing techniques.
How Does It Work?
ELDOA is a safe and effective stretching and strengthening technique that uses total body active muscular lengthening to self-normalize the tissues around a joint in order to widen the space within the joint. ELDOA postures are primarily for the spine but also include other peripheral joints like the shoulders and hips.
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What Does It Help With?
ELDOA provides pain relief, improves postural alignment and awareness, improves mobility and flexibility, decreases joint compression and supports full body fitness.
Myo-Fascial and Global Postural Stretching
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All muscles are surrounded by connective tissue (fascia). This connective tissue is the link between various structures within the body, making it like a continuous chain throughout the body. Guy VOYER DO. teaches that “all of the body is in link”. Understanding that all is linked, is the genius of Myo-Fascial and Global Postural Stretching, as you are creating tension in the whole fascial chain with respect to the global organization of its' tissues.
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With Myo-Fascial stretching, the goal is not to gain flexibility of a muscle, but to improve the quality of the movement of the tissues thereby allowing the muscle to glide within the fascia. Global Postural stretching uses the same principles, but focuses on a more comprehensive area (i.e. lumboscaral). Myo-Fascial and Global Postural stretching both respect the organization of the fascia.
What is Proprioception?
Muscles and bones act together to form levers. Proprioception is the capacity to master and understand the position of these boney levers in space. Within the muscle tendons and ligaments there are “micro-computers” that send information regarding position of the limbs as well as direction and speed of movement. It is possible to train these “micro-computers” through specific proprioception exercises.
Segmental & Global Strengthening
What is the difference between Segmental and Global Strengthening?
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Every muscle in the body has a job. When only part (or none) of a muscle is functioning as intended, it requires the body to adapt. This adaptation can pull your body out of balance and create faulty recruitment patterns and/or injury. Segmental strengthening is one method to retrain the body to recruit specific muscles. Segmental strengthening exercises are specific to the multiple muscle fibers as well as various fiber directions. Using small variations in specific postures, it ensures that you are strengthening all the muscle fibers/directions. For example, when strengthening the gluteus maximus muscle, you can change the foot and knee position to facilitate activation of the multiple fibers in the same muscle. Once you have proper recruitment, you can train the body more globally. Global training respects the individual muscle recruitment in the context of its functional movement pattern. For example, the squat is a global movement pattern requiring activation of multiple muscles.
