Trainer's Best Corrective Fitness Tips

On Thursday, I introduced you to North Carolina personal trainer Bobby Morrow (left), a 63-year-old former U.S. Marine, sheriff's deputy and casino security expert who has found a new calling helping fellow baby boomers remedy nagging health woes through an emerging trend called corrective exercise.

Today, I'd like to share a few of Morrow's best fitness tips, gleaned from my interview with the trainer, as well as his blog and exercise videos on YouTube.

1. Think of yourself as one unit, not a bunch of parts. A problem with one part of your body -- your hip or shoulder, for example -- may actually be caused by a structural flaw or muscular imbalance elsewhere. Morrow suggests finding a personal trainer who's got the know-how to give you an overall bodily evaluation, including a structural assessment.

2. Don't get extreme. If you read about the grueling fitness routines followed by athletes and action movie stars, it's easy to assume that the only way to reshape your body is to work yourself practically to death and follow a diet reminiscent of the Bataan Death March. But Morrow warns against such fanaticism. "If you constantly work out really hard and don't eat much, your body eventually is just going to shut down," he says. "You're just going to make yourself feel tired all the time. You need rest and good nutrition to recover from exercise. It's really all about moderation, not extremes, and making small changes that you can live with long-term."

3. Pay attention to fascia. We're not talking about some authoritarian political movement, but rather the body's network of connective tissue, which Morrow says often is the source of chronic pain and other problems. "Basically, it's like shrink wrap," he says. "It has a memory. In the American lifestyle, we spend a lot of time seated, so when we get up, the fascia wants to pull us back into that position." On the plus side, though, you can relax and reshape the fascia and break down stiffness in problem areas that restrict your mobility or cause pain.

4. Working on one trigger point actually can bring relief elsewhere. Remember that the body is a unit, with parts that work in synergy. To see how this works, Morrow suggests putting a golf ball under your foot and rolling it around gently under your arches for a minute or two, to massage and unlock the fascia there. Then try bending and touching your toes. "The hamstrings are connected to the feet," he explains. "You'll be surprised to see how much further you can go."

5. Scrutinize your posture. You probably hated it when your grandma told you to quit slouching, but it's time for you to start thinking about your posture again. A less-than-ideal body carriage -- see the chart accompanying Morrow's essay "What is corrective exercise?" for examples -- often is an indication that some of your supporting musculature is weak and overstretched, or too tight from doing a disproportionate amount of the work of holding you up. And when you're doing exercises, such alignment flaws actually can cause injuries, as anyone who's ever tweaked back muscles while doing squats can tell you.

6. Learn to think long-term. "You can't build a bridge across the Grand Canyon in one week," Morrow says. He starts his clients out relatively easy, with stationary exercise machines, so that they can build a foundation of muscle tone and learn proper breathing techniques before moving on to more challenging free weights or body-weight balance exercises. "That way, they don't have to struggle so much," he says. "Ideally, down the road you want to be performing integrated movements that use multiple muscle groups, and incorporate balance work."

Read more: 10 Ways People Sabotage Their Workouts