Functional Exercise Prescription

In Functional Exercise Prescription Eyal Lederman presents a revolutionary new approach for exercise prescription that uses the individual’s own movement repertoire. The book demonstrates how daily activities (the life gym) can be amplified to provide the necessary movement challenges to support movement rehabilitation in many musculoskeletal and pain conditions. Hence, all activities can become remedial without the need to prescribe unfamiliar exercise; in other words, ‘how to exercise without exercise’ or ‘how to rehabilitate without exercise’.

People recover from most musculoskeletal and pain conditions through three key processes: repair, adaptation, and alleviation of symptoms. The author explains how to identify the individual’s recovery process and how to select the appropriate daily or sporting activities, and, how they can be modified to support recovery.

Functional Exercise Prescription is a dramatic departure from the traditional strength and conditioning models that have been used for rehabilitation. The book explores the limitation of these models and explains how they can be replaced by functional daily activities (‘functioncise’). It provides the practitioner with practical tools to construct a tailor-made plan for each individual to help expedite and optimize their recovery. Most rehabilitation can be constructed from a small familiar set of daily or sports activities.

Author

Eyal Lederman graduated from the British School of Osteopathy in 1986. He completed his PhD in physiotherapy at King’s College, London, where he researched the neurophysiology of manual therapy. He has also researched and developed Osteopathic Harmonic Technique, Osteopathic Neuromuscular Rehabilitation, Functional stretching and a new clinical model in osteopathy called Process Approach. Eyal is involved in research examining the physiological effects of manual therapy and the development of Osteopathic Functional Neuromuscular Rehabilitation and Functional Stretching. Eyal is currently Honorary Associate Professor at the Institute of Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Health, University College London, where he is involved in researching the clinical application of stretching. He also practices as an osteopath in London. In addition to his clinical work and his research interests Professor Lederman is the director of CPDO, a UK-based centre providing continuous professional development for osteopaths. He is a guest teacher of manual therapy and the scientific basis of manual therapy in various schools of osteopathy in the UK and abroad. He has published articles in the area of manual therapy and is the author of the books Harmonic Technique; Fundamentals of Manual Therapy; The Science and Practice of Manual Therapy; Neuromuscular Rehabilitation in Manual and Physical Therapy; and Therapeutic Stretching: Towards a Functional Approach. He has also contributed chapters to many other books.