Time: 10:45 a.m. -12:00 p.m.
Presenter: Chris Munford

Munford on Core training:
I was musing with a German exercise physiologist friend the other day about how North American athletic performance training sometimes travels an odd and curious path in its continuous evolution:

The continuum seems to have followed the general line of; whole body training, to a gradual narrowing down towards highly isolationist limb-training, and then of late, a veering towards this ‘new’ thing called functional training. Along the latter portions of that curious path came a shining-light-from-above epiphany that the core area was being grossly neglected, which seems to then have led to a massive focusing of all things fitness and performance related, towards working the Holy Grail core in various and ever-increasing forms of isolation.

My German friend chuckled and shook his head and pronounced;
“You Americans (Europeans tend to call every one across the pond “Americans”), have managed to look at function, decided that core-training is important to function, and yet proceeded to address the core in manners of isolation which only act to isolate the core from function! This, my friend is not evolution, this is devolution!”

In his bombastic way, my friend hinted at the crux of the matter: Our cores are at the whim of function. Indeed function is assisted, improved, maximized by our cores, yet we would do well to keep in mind that functional intent and design dictates the uses and therefore the actions of our cores.

Function is as function does; what we do and what we want to do and what we are meant to do are the things that our cores should help us do.

 In my working session today, I will discuss and present the idea of core training in relationship to bipedal athletes, paying heed to functional usefulness and a “Quantum” approach to core functionality.

Bio: Chris Munford

 A former CFL football player, Chris is an Athletic Performance Specialist who works with elite athletes through EGO Performance Training a division of CPEC, a corporate wellness company Chris founded in 1993.

Chris did his undergrad at Simon Fraser University, B.C, Canada, his Athletic Performance Specialization at the Sport Movement Science Performance Institute, San Francisco, California and his Master of Sport for Athletic Movement and Conditioning in Frankfurt, Germany.
In addition to consulting for several National and Provincial sport organizations, Chris has worked with athletes who have competed in NCAA and CIS championships and athletes who have participated in 11 World Championships, 2 Olympic Games, 3 Pan Am games and countless other national and international competitions in the sports of; basketball, baseball, track, cross-country, volleyball, field hockey, soccer, swimming and rugby.

In the realm of professional sports, Chris was the inaugural Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats. Chris regularly works with CFL, NFL, MLB, GBL athletes and currently is the Performance Consultant for Thomas Dimitroff Jr., General Manager of The Atlanta Falcons of the NFL.

…garnering and international reputation for thinking outside the box and for his gregarious personality, Chris feeds his functional cravings with daily runs/workouts and rock climbing and hiking. Chris and his wife Jenny, who runs a TV commercial production company, are expecting and looking forward to “matricizing” their first child in late March.