"Each person is unique.”
The colour of our eyes or our skin, our height, our personality, our facial features ... make us unique. The same goes for the way we move, that too is unique!

Look around you:
You will see that some people put their heel down while others barely put the sole of their foot on the ground. Also, you will come across "cowboys" with their "O" knees and others with "X" knees that almost touch each other at every step!

What you see are motor preferences! It is nothing more or less than our preferred way of to perform a movement. Concepts such as preferential motor chains, extension or flexion leg, motor shoulder flexion, the motor shoulder, axiality or radiality ... allow us to map our motor skills and learn more about our body.

Probably because they were developed by sports professionals, motor preferences find their first application in sports and healthcare. By restoring the body's natural patterns, our movements become more efficient and fluid. This is why many sportsmen and women learn about their motor preferences: it enables them to improve their performance or reduce the risk of injury.

Each to her own :
Whether you are an athlete looking for improved performance, a chronically injured individual, a Sunday runner looking for a better sensation, a business woman suffering from back pain, or a young man feeling uncomfortable in his body ... the knowledge of your motor preferences will help you in the pursuit of your goals!

This is not about putting people in boxes. Rather, to know your motor preferences should help you identify your body strengths and weaknesses to feel better and achieve your goals.

A classic motor preference assessment takes 1h30 to 2h. First, the anamnesis (or discussion) enables us to gauge your energy level and understand your sporting or medical history and your goals. Then, we analyze your motor skills through a series of observations. Most of the time, these observations include proprioception tests in various postures.

The main observations to establish motor skills include:
Aerial or terrestrial, extension leg or flexion leg, inspiration or expiration chains, rotational chains (extroverted or introverted), axiality or radiality, movement quadrant®, motor shoulder or hip.

Once your natural preferences are confirmed, we look for possible disturbing factors (archaic reflexes for example!). Based on a solid understanding of your motor skills, we can then talk about your objectives and the steps to take in order to achieve them. These steps can be set out in a training plan and/or take the form of personalized training sessions.

Primitive reflexes are reflexes (automatic, involuntary movements caused by a stimulus) which are present in newborns to enable them to survive the first months of their lives. Some of these reflexes are already present in-utero and remain until the age of 3 years.

We have mentioned the grasping reflex above. Here is another one:
Consider the reaction of a baby when you gently push her backward, she automatically spreads her arms, opens her hands with the palms up and then brings her arms back closer to her body, elbows flexed, as if she were trying to protect herself. This is known as the Moro reflex.

As the months go by, the reflexes are progressively integrated (we don't say that a reflex disappears, but that it becomes integrated), to make space for voluntary movements that will allow the child to move according to her own decisions.

It sometimes happens (in fact, much more frequently than we think) that some primitive reflexes remain active longer than expected. They can then interfere with voluntary movements and have consequences in our daily life. We then feel like a stranger in our own body!

Some examples of disorders that may be caused by the persistence of one or more reflexes are :
learning disabilities (poor reading or writing) or concentration problems, hyperactivity, chronic back pain, migraines, poor distance perception, discomfort, motion sickness, hypersensitivity, excessive shyness, bedwetting, poor chewing ...
The list goes on and on!

Note that not everyone reacts in the same way to the non-integration of a reflex. For example, a non-integrated Babinski reflex will cause some people to walk on the outer side of the foot while others will instead walk on the inside edge of the foot!

There are many integration methods, and they vary according to the reflex to be integrated. Each professional has his or her own favourite methods and each patient does not react in the same way to the proposed treatment. It is therefore important for the practitioner to have a range of techniques available that can be adapted to the patient.

The main methods are:
Integration by isometric pressure, tactile integration, integration by movement, Blomberg's rhythmic movements and lullabies, brain-gym, Thomas Hanna's somatic movements, Svetlana Masgutova's MNRI, Tim Anderson's 0riginal Strength ...

After a session with the practitioner, the patient is given exercises to do at home. The exercises are usually repeated every other day for five minutes. Three weeks later, the patient and the practitioner meet again to review the situation.