Let me introduce myself. My name is Joel Fernandes, I´m a physiotherapist and personal trainer with a huge passion about human movement.
Most of my career has been spent as a sports physiotherapist, working in a wide range of sports such as, football, basketball, tennis, golf, rhythmic gymnastics, athletics, karate and jiu-jitsu. It was through these different experiences that I realized that no matter in which sport you participate, you still have to be able to perform basic movement patterns to ensure good musculoskeletal health. Human movement became my obsession, guiding my continuing education over the years.
In November 2012, something happened that would change the trajectory of my career in a way I had never thought of. My grandmother fell one night in her apartment while going to the bathroom. Unable to ask for help, she remained on the floor several hours until my mother found her in the next day, completely vulnerable and scared.
And why couldn’t she ask for help? The reason was simple, she basically couldn’t get up from the floor independently.
During her life she had gradually moved away from the floor and had lost the ability to do some of the basic movement patterns required to get up after a fall. What we don´t use, we tend to lose. This event had a big impact on me. As a physiotherapist and personal trainer, I started wondering why I knew so much about fall prevention and so little about what to do if the fall actually happens.
So, I started looking for answers and learning more about the subject. I even start using lying down and getting up from the floor as an assessment tool with my patients and clients. I found that a lot of people struggle with this simple task and by addressing this issue I could help them move more freely and effortlessly in other types of situations, such as playing their favorite sport, picking up their grandchildren or simply getting in or out of a car.
With this in my mind, I created MBF (Movement Beyond Fifty), a movement system designed to improve basic human movement patterns (such as squatting, lunging, pushing or crawling).
With the MBF system you are able to work on your basic mobility, stability, coordination, balance, cardio and strength that you will use in your daily life tasks. And to achieve that you only need your body and the floor, no fancy equipment is required.
Today the implementation and dissemination of the MBF approach is one of my main occupations and that´s why I decided to create this blog. By sharing my knowledge and experiences with a wider audience, hopefully people over 50 can learn how to maintain movement competence and live a more active and healthy life.
I hope you will enjoy it and that it may be useful to you.
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