Essentrics has been the workout of choice for professional athletes over the last 20 years —including the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens and athletes in: football, basketball, hockey, speed skating, figure skating, gymnastics, squash, volleyball, skiing, diving and swimming.
The purpose of this program is to stretch, strengthen and rebalance the full muscular structure while lubricating the connective tissue, leaving you more flexible and agile. Essentrics prepares your body to both withstand the maximum demands of your sport and to rebound injury-free from unexpected twists, turns and stresses.
Note: Consult your physician before beginning this or any other exercise program.
Essentrics® is fluid full-body workout that rebalances the muscular structure and strengthens every muscle in the body eccentrically. It incorporates various techniques including PNF and isometrics, while systematically working all 650 muscles and 360 joints. This flexibility program works through the muscle chains to liberate your fascia, empower your muscles and relieve tension.
Our definition of flexibility: complete freedom of movement within the muscles, joints and connective tissue of the entire body. It refers to the achievement of your maximum personal level of flexibility.
Like everything worth having, flexibility takes time to achieve. A 5-minute warm-up will not change the degree of muscular flexibility. Warm-ups give the illusion of increased flexibility, however in truth, warm-ups simply take the tension or chill out of the muscles, making them feel more flexible. It is unrealistic to expect a change in your overall flexibility in a short period of time. To achieve real change in muscle length, a minimum of 25 minutes of Essentrics training performed two to three times a week is necessary.
Unlike most flexibility programs which emphasize passive stretching, the flexibility gained in the Essentrics Workout remains with you while you perform in your sport.
Although passive stretching feels good at the time, the moment you move, your muscles re-contract to their starting point, leaving you as tight as prior to a passive-stretching workout. Essentrics is a program aimed at maintaining flexibility while increasing your strength.
In order to be agile, you need flexible and strong joints. Essentrics focuses on balancing every joint by simultaneously stretching and strengthening the muscles which pulls the joints apart, leaving them free of tension and full of power.
One of the unique benefits of the Essentrics technique is strength in length. This is one of the most powerful forms of conditioning because it leaves muscles strong and long with none of the negative effects of a restricted joint, but all the positive effects of maximum power. Speed and agility are the trademark results experienced immediately after each Essentrics Workout.
Injuries are often caused when imbalanced and tight muscles are suddenly twisted and challenged in an unexpected way, resulting in tears, pulls and sprains. Essentrics rebalances the full muscular structure, preparing the muscles & tendons to both withstand and rebound injury-free from any unexpected twists, turns and stresses.
To heal an injury, it is necessary to increase the flow of blood into the injured area in order to deliver the healing properties of blood while removing toxins. Stretching is one of the fastest and most effective methods of delivering blood to specific regions, which is why it is so effective in injury healing.
Healing also requires rebalancing and protection of the injured area. Essentrics is a rebalancing program that strengthens and stretches all the muscles surrounding the injury, enabling them to compensate for the weakened ones while they heal.
Part of the way the team has committed itself to spending more time on the ice and less time in the clinic this year is the addition of mandatory dynamic stretching sessions after practices. That was something we had been thinking about incorporating for a few years …
-Pierre Allard; Montreal Canadiens Strength and Conditioning Coach
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