What is an OOV?
Have you ever wondered why some movements feel effortless while others feel restricted, no matter how hard you “try”?
The answer lies not just in muscle strength, but in your nervous system’s map of movement. The OOV, a revolutionary piece of equipment used in Pilates and physical therapy that helps rebuild that map — awakening deep reflexes, refining coordination, and enhancing your body’s ability to move with natural control and flow.
The OOV is a patented, multidirectionally unstable device designed to challenge your body’s stability, coordination, and control in every plane of motion. Made from a unique, durable foam that mimics the elasticity and response of human tissue, the OOV simultaneously stimulates both the local sensory apparatus and the global stabilization systems of the body.
The Science Behind the OOV
Reflexes play an essential role in maintaining tone and alignment. As infants, we rely on reflexes to guide our motor development — from rolling to crawling to standing. Over time, these reflexes integrate into complex movement patterns that allow for coordinated, efficient function.
In adults, we often lose touch with this reflexive foundation due to modern lifestyles, repetitive movement patterns, or injury. The OOV is designed to reawaken those reflexogenic and motor control pathways by engaging the nervous system on a subconscious level. Rather than focusing on “activating” muscles consciously, the OOV encourages the body to respond instinctively — training balance, coordination, and stability in a way that feels natural and deeply connected.
OOV was invetend and built in Australia in 2008 by Dr. Daniel Vladeta, who is an Osteopath, neuroscientist, medical research engineer and lecturer. According to Dr. Nick Dawe (OOV Master Instructor) and Dr. Daniel Vladeta:
“The OOV allows us to nourish the inside world of our body — the proprioceptors, mechanoreceptors, chemoreceptors, photoreceptors, and thermoreceptors — and how they collectively weave into tone, control, and strength. OOV was developed to solve problems in the body, to identify whether someone has a restriction leading to instability, whether it’s a motor control issue, or whether it’s both to create a strategy for what body is trying to do to create stability. With OOV, we give someone corrective movements to start to change the motor map.”
This sensory integration is what makes the OOV unique. Each session becomes a methodological and systemic flow of movement concepts that leave the user in an exceptional physical state — addressing all the “gears” of the body from the inside out.
Building Better Movement Maps
In order to move purposefully, our brain must first have a map of the movement and its anticipated outcomes. This map forms part of our subconscious movement strategy — it happens automatically, since the brain doesn’t have time to think about every small movement we make. Our higher executive centers stay focused on larger goals while these maps run in the background.
So, the better the map, the better the movement.
Once a poor map has been established, however, we need the deep code to restore and enrich it. Richness of information — at the level of tone, control, and strength — equates to total-body goodness.
This is where the OOV comes in.
By creating a state of multidirectional instability, it provides vital feedback to the body, helping to rewrite and enhance those internal movement maps. The OOV guides you toward more efficient, effortless, and sustainable movement — not by forcing control, but by awakening your body’s innate intelligence.
What Happens When You Lie on the OOV
When you first lie on the OOV, your spine is placed in a lengthened position called axial elongation. This subtle positioning facilitates rotational instability, gently initiating core control through sensory feedback. From this place of support and length, mobility in the hips, shoulders, and spine can be readily improved — all while core control is naturally activated.
The OOV’s three curves are engineered to mirror the natural curvatures of the spine. The result? A tool that is comfortable, supportive, flexible, dynamic, and unstable — all at once. It’s inherently proprioceptive, requires minimal cueing, and acts as a self-correcting system.
This design allows for segmental movement throughout the spine and body, improving biomechanical efficiency and empowering you, the user, to progress at your own pace — without dependency on a clinician.
The Fascial Connection
There has been increasing discussion about the role of fascia — the connective tissue network that unites every structure of the body — in our movement strategies. Our body is composed of several fascial lines, which serve as force-transmission pathways through the myofascial system. Muscles communicate through these lines, orchestrating complex sequences of activation.
All movement is the result of tone, control, and strength, coordinated through these fascial continuities. Optimal movement emerges from the interaction between incoming and outgoing information between the brain and body.
The major “shareholders” in this communication network include the spine, mouth, eyes, ears, feet, and hands. To unlearn undesirable patterns and relearn native function, we must provide the fascia with rich sensory input — information that nourishes the system and corrects faulty movement patterns.
When there are blind spots in this system, the body compensates inefficiently — expending unnecessary energy, creating strain, and eventually leading to pain or tissue breakdown.
The OOV helps uncover and correct these blind spots by enriching sensory feedback, retraining coordination, and restoring balance throughout the body. In doing so, it empowers you to reclaim control, move with confidence, and truly take ownership of your body’s potential.
The OOV is more than an exercise tool — it’s a bridge between neuroscience and movement, structure and flow, conscious and subconscious control.
It invites your body to reorganize itself from the inside out, enhancing awareness, coordination, and strength through intelligent instability.
Whether you’re recovering from injury, enhancing performance, or simply seeking to move better, the OOV offers a pathway to reawaken your body’s innate intelligence — one reflex, one breath, one subtle adjustment at a time.
Kateryna has a Master’s degree in Physical Therapy with 15 years of clinical experience. She is a STOTT Certified Pilates Instructor and loves to integrate pilates into her physical therapy treatment approach. Her mission is to help you feel and move better for life.
