IOL Strength and Conditioning

2-disc DVD set—1 hour, 45 minutes in duration, 2008

In this 2-disc set, Secrets of Primitive Patterns, number four in the Secrets Series consisting of Secrets of the Shoulder, Secrets of the Hip and Knee and Secrets of Core Training, the Backside, Gray Cook and Lee Burton teach how to uncover asymmetries that forewarn of future risk of injury. They follow the simple screening process with techniques they’ve developed to help people instinctively correct core stability and motor control issues. Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll find in this powerful DVD set.

Introduction, 15 minutes

In this discussion, Gray and Lee mine the Functional Movement Screens based on primitive postures of developmental human movement milestones, soil for the functional patterns of the other three Secrets DVDs. As babies, we have mobility first, then we learn to stabilize. Later, as we begin to move poorly for whatever reason, the brain sacrifices mobility to supply stability. To regain the missing mobility, we need to reestablish stability first. This DVD set is designed to teach us how to do just that.

Here’s an example of the type of tips woven throughout the discussion: Tonic holding is what the sedentary culture does when it’s not prepared for activity. Rather than jumping into the gym without preparation, we need to start with core stability and motor control before moving to extremity training. For instance, the core needs to be firing properly before we hit the bench press. When we bench without good core motor control, we’re building exterior musculature the interior can’t support.

Screening review, 17 minutes

Focusing on the pushup and rotary stability screens, the final two of the seven parts of the FMS, they show the exact positions and movement of the screens, showing what to look for and how to score. The pushup screen includes the pain provocation hyperextension test, and the rotary screen includes a flexion pain provocation test.

In rotary stability screening, they show the elbow-to-knee test many people don’t know to use, and explain what’s happening in the torso, including subtleties to watch for during this stability movement. Gray discusses rotary stability modifications specifically for youth and mature populations while suggesting hesitation in using these adjustments.

This is a review of these two screens. For the full FMS screen education, you’ll want a combination of the new book, Movement, an FMS workshop or the FMS DVD set.

Pushup Corrections, 14 minutes

Pushup corrections in a nutshell: Do more pushups. Using a variety of pushup positions, a number of which are demonstrated, simply practice stability pushing. Here the key: Stimulate the pushup pattern. You’re not looking for failure: Challenging, not difficult! Pick the one that makes the pattern look best —corrective exercise is for correction; it’s not the workout.

Gray offers neuromuscular mechanisms to teach the pushup activation in unusual positions, side-lying against a wall, eccentric work with a Cook band, stimulate reflex stabilization via finger engagement and uses a core board in various positions for more advanced activity. Pay attention here. You’re looking for automatic responses!

Rotary Stability Corrections, 6 minutes

Here they’re teaching us to look for dissociation of the upper to lower body, something few people are aware of, either the ability or inability. This one was amazing in its complexity while appearing very simple.

Rolling Pattern testing and modifications, 5 minutes

Gray coaches his wife Danielle through the rolling patterns, demonstrating the rolling axis using primitive reflex action and includes modifications that provide a headstart for individuals who struggle.

Quadruped corrections, 11 minutes

With the intension of regaining core stability as screened in the rotary stability test, think regression: This doesn’t go right to a diagonal—Gray starts with a single-arm lift while watching the stability of the other shoulder and both hips. Then he has Danielle reach out with one leg, watching the other hip and shoulders independently. Only after success with the single extremities does he move her to the diagonal.

Assessments, 11 minutes

This is a discussion of the differences between screening, testing and assessing, followed by quality assessment of rolling and the quantity value of side planks.  In this section, Gray explains his verbal cues in depth, showing what to look for in both the upper body and lower body strategies, supine to prone and reverse in all four quadrants. Lee kicks in with a conversation on the available research on rolling, side planking and asymmetries, and they continue with their work in side planking, including regressions.  Gray points out the number one problem in most of our corrective exercise programs: We start with planks and side planks before achieving a successful rolling pattern. His instructions are for us to establish a symmetrical all-quadrant rolling pattern before side planking.

Rolling Corrections, 10 minutes

Here Gray demonstrates his step-by-step corrections that trigger the reflex-generated core stabilization sometimes lost after injury, surgery or a lifetime of desk jockeying. He uses tools such as a BOSU, Airex pads, a stability ball and a rolled towel to get Lee to instinctively load the spine and get into the deep squat position from all-fours without rounding the spine. They then move to supine and a prop to chock the body in a pre-loaded position, a Cook tubing band and a few bits of Gray’s tricky RNT finesse cuing.  Of special note: the star fish drill Gray and Greg Rose developed for Titleist. That one’s wild!

Side Plank Corrections, 10 minutes

In this section the guys work the side plank position using different tools and angles that engage side-position core stability.

Conclusion, 6 minutes

Here we discover the basis of their thinking about motor programming and neurodevelopmental programming and a plan to further our skills in this arena. Theirs is a new approach built on the foundation of earlier philosophies you’ll enjoy studying if corrective exercise is a cornerstone of your work.

Get your copy of Secrets of Primitive Patterns from this link via Perform Better.

by Gray Cook

Author of Movement: Functional Movement Systems

Is there such a thing as organic exercise? The word organic is often associated with concepts like natural, whole, unrefined and authentic. The term that was once only applied to our food is now being applied to our other lifestyle choices as well. As we follow the theme produced by a movement toward organic food— our inputs—we should also consider our outputs. Our exercise and activity choices have been influenced and molded by the same forces that reduced the quality of our foods. Reductionist science once broke down foods in a superficial attempt to improve on nature. In reality, processed food is about profit. The end result achieved profit and produced highly processed, cheap food with an extra long shelf life, and a significant reduction in food quality.

In the book In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan presents a well-researched and compelling story that explains how we have undermined our nutrition in an attempt to save time and money. Ironically, the story also parallels our attempts at exercise and activity: We have regrettably used reductionist science to try to improve movement.

Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food

Our dissection and analysis of the body has produced isolated exercises that assume movement patterns will spontaneously reset themselves. Analysis is important, but synthesis is also necessary. The brain cannot reassemble movement patterns just because we exercise a few of the obvious parts involved. That is just not how we learn to move as we develop and grow. Our brains and bodies are designed to perceive and behave in multiple environments and learn at an exceptionally fast rate. We are highly adaptable and we synthesize fundamental and complex movement patterns. We also modify and fine-tune our patterns on the move. Our movement learning system rarely benefits from isolated exercises or focus on single body parts. Just like highly processed fortified food, the isolated exercises seem more scientifically complex, and therefore in the public eye, are assume to be better. Unfortunately, analysis and reconstruction often leaves something out. It leaves something out of our food, and it leaves something out of our attempts at exercise and rehabilitation.

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.” ~Albert Einstein

The takeaway—Eat a balanced variety of clean whole foods and exercise in a balanced variety of clean whole movement patterns.

The word clean with respect to food infers that chemicals and unnecessary processing do not alter the natural state of the food. We ensure this with soil quality and limited processing. It implies that the natural state of a balanced diet would leave little need for supplementation unless a medical problem or deficiency is present.

So how can the word clean apply to exercise? First we need a standard for acceptable movement patterns. Unacceptable movement patterns would be associated with levels of injury risk not observed when movement is observed at or above acceptable levels of competency. If a movement pattern is not acceptable or not clean, we should not reinforce the poor movement behavior with exercise. This is like practicing a bad behavior hoping it will improve.

If a movement standard did exist, our next step would be to look at exercise and rehabilitation practices that produced the highest levels of movement quality with the least amount of time and expense, the most efficient methods. We would not expect the best methods and programs to require supplementation, but supplementation in exercise is actually the norm. Nutritional supplementation is not the issue here—movement supplementation is!

Think for a minute how common it is to hear the fit individual or athlete discuss flexibility or core work. Both flexibility and core work should be part of each exercise movement performed. The brain must combine some degree of flexibility, coordination, balance, strength, endurance and quickness in every movement. Why separate the attributes into packages? Because the compartmentalization suits the way our brains think, but not the way they actually create movement. When we play, dance and perform athletics, we don’t analyze our movements—we synthesize our movements.

We analyze movement to improve communication, teaching and to fill our need to verbalize things. But consider for a moment riding a bike. We can do it and we think we can verbalize it, however our verbalization will not benefit the person who cannot ride a bike as will the experience of riding a bike. This thread of discussion does not diminish analysis. It is totally necessary, but it is not sufficient. Synthesis is required to complete the learning process. The lesson here is to strive for synthesis in exercise and rehabilitation. The task before us is to match our methods to movement principles and create standards that provide baselines and objective feedback.

We would not think much of the nutritionists who said keep eating the same bad foods, but will design all the supplements needed to balance public nutrition… or maybe we would. Maybe that is what the public wants exercise and rehabilitation experts to do, too, but the results will not be good. Five minutes of flexibility work, 10 minutes of core work, 30 mindless minutes on a treadmill after sitting all day can barely put a dent in a body designed to move in wonderfully complex patterns. The treadmill is not the problem.

The book Movement: Functional Movement Systems is designed for the exercise and rehabilitation professional. It discusses how we have tried to improve on Mother Nature with reductionist science and isolated solutions.

Modern society affords us the time, convenience and education to apply the best methods of nutrition and exercise. The problem is we do not have a systematic approach that produces the desired result. Of all the cultures on this planet, westerners should be the most physically robust. However, our diet- and exercise-obsessed culture has actually produced the opposite, and this will even be more evident in our next generation. The products and practices that can foster a more holistic lifestyle are readily available to us. We simply need logical, objective systems because systems, unlike programs, will require each of us to complete necessary steps before progressing. Systems will hold our progress to a standard and not let us skip steps, assuming we can outsmart Mother Nature. They will direct us how to grow more authentic and regain our natural organic roots.

Guest post by Gray Cook
Author of Movement: Functional Movement Systems

DATELINE: FT LEAVENWORTH, KS

It’s a wrap! We now have about eight hours of Glenn Pendlay on video, lecturing on weightlifting training programs and teaching his Olympic lifting techniques to a group of novices. And let me tell you — he was terrific… he really knows how to teach the lifts.

He brought athletes with him to demonstrate and help teach, the 11-year-old Neiman and her 60-year-old grandmother, Mary McGregor, and the 24-year-old Jon North, who, as you can see in the video below, is a top-level competitor.

An old friend of the IronOnline group, Ingrid Marcum, also made the trip, both to visit and to teach.

She’s been working with John Brookfield teaching his battling rope certifications, and to no one’s surprise, when Colonel Mullins brought out his rope, Ingrid was right there to share her knowledge… and skills.

The first of the DVDs, which will be the Olympic weightlifting techniques, will be ready for delivery around Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, we have many more photos and memories to share, and a few different ways to get at them.

• Via Facebook
• Via the IronOnline photo gallery, where you can set up a slideshow (top right side of the photo)
• Via a thread in the forum, where the photos and commentary start here.

Gray Cook‘s new website went live yesterday, graycook.com, where you’ll find a few new articles written after Movement was released. He says he has about 30 more that he’s written on plane rides home from speaking engagements during which people had questions that triggered a writing frenzy. You’ll be alerted when those go live if you subscribe via email in the top right sidebar.

One of my favorite sections is the Audio page. A well-rounded collection of his podcast interviews is denoted by the Gray microphone icon, and the Movement Audio icon designates his new plan, weekly audio Q&As. There’s also a nice archive of videos and video interviews under the video tab.

Make sure you see:

• Early Perspective on Functional Movement
• Organic Exercise
• Expanding on the Joint-by-Joint Approach

… and the great videos under the category, Cool Stuff.

Bill Pearl with George and Tuesday Coates and Richard Thornley, Jr.

There’s no question Bill Pearl’s name comes up first in a discussion of the hardest working people in the fitness business, from his time on the gym floor as a competitive athlete, gym owner and lifting instructor, to his work as an equipment designer, lecturer and author. And now, Bill’s newest effort is finally in print… eight years of heavy work—no languishing in the bottom drawer waiting for the muse, these were productive years of six hours daily writing. This opus is three indexed volumes, 1,061 pages in a horizontal 11×8.5 landscape format.

The books are packed with large photographs, most of which only the true historians will have seen before, and many of the shots will be new to them, too. These are not average photos; these are alive with energy—larger-than-life personalities jumping off the pages.

Somehow I think you’d notice these guys on the street.
L to R, Bert Goodrich, Clancy Ross, Eric Pedersen, Steve Reeves, Floyd Pages & Alan Stephan

147 individuals are covered in detail, with many more mentioned within the commentary. That’s a big number, but there will certainly be important people found missing. How could Bill cover everyone? Answer: He couldn’t. There will be people in here you wouldn’t put in your top 147, and people in yours who are missing from Bill’s… count on it. But once you get sucked into the text, the photos and captions, you’ll forget any slight you may conjure up when you discover your great-uncle’s best friend didn’t make the cut. And of course, just because a person isn’t covered in detail does not mean missing entirely; many, many people have extensive index listings without a table of contents reference.

Volume 1
Beginning with a prologue covering ancient times, this volume covers physical culture the 1950s, vaudeville to the beginning of bodybuilding, then Jack LaLanne to the early battle days of Bob Hoffman and Joe Weider. Following the foreword and prologue, 65 individuals are presented.

Volume 2
This is the golden age coverage of Bill Pearl’s day, including bodybuilders, powerlifters and Olympic lifters of the later ‘50s and ‘60s. 54 of the top athletes of the time are detailed in full, and many others are mentioned throughout the commentary and photo captions.

Our hero, Bill Pearl working the crowd

Volume 3
The final volume covers the period of the ‘70s and beyond, in which Bill has chosen 28 men and women to represent these later years. The set closes with some of the best of the series: the history and stories behind the major contests (Mr. America, Mr. Universe, Mr. Olympia, Arnold Classic), the Highland Games, Muscle Beach, the AOBS and Heidenstam dinners, the York Barbell Hall of Fame, the University of Texas Stark Center and a golden era legends weekend memory from 1991. Bill discusses the important physique photographers and iron historians, and of course you can feel his heartfelt appreciation. You’re going to love this section.

Head on over to Bill and Judy’s site, scroll down a quarter page and use the preview slider to click through some of the pages to get an idea of you can be enjoying in about a week.



I got a terrific review of Gray’s book from Dan John this morning. I think Gray’s going to like it, too.

“I can’t think of a single time in my career where I felt as intimidated as I feel trying to review Gray Cook’s Movement. As a 118-pound Middle Linebacker, I fear no one. As an undersized thrower, I stepped in the ring anywhere. I once dived in an area where a Tiger Shark had a small human snack days before I hopped in the ocean.

“Reviewing Cook’s ‘Opus’ puts me into my little corner. Honestly, there is one single page, Self-Limiting Exercises, that will make you want to stop what you are doing and reconsider everything you have done in your training career. Oh, yeah, the FMS stuff, the screens and the corrections and the next level of corrections and then the explanations about the corrections…what can I say?

“Here is what I can say: Cook’s book stands alone. It is a one stop ‘testament’ to movement. His explanation of designing training upon the foundation of proper movement (versus how I train myself!) literally made me stand up and walk around for a few minutes. It is staggering to attempt to corral this work into a few pithy phrases. The charts, the graphs, and the tables that walk you through your discoveries is a GPS system for human movement.

“It stands alone. I don’t know how else to say it. I’ve had hands-on work by Gray and I had no idea what to do or where to go after those few minutes. This book literally is a trip through his brain and he gives you the tools to walk with his experience and diagnose (in my case, self-diagnose) issues related to human movement.

“Do I recommend it? Are you serious? If you are serious, at any level of sport or movement, you need this book. And, yes, for the record, my review pales at best in comparison to this monumental work.”

Dan John
Author of Never Let Go

http://danjohn.net

Nice!

And you know, I think there’s quite a bit of hesitancy about reviewing Movement.  Let’s see if we can break through that logjam. If you’ve read the book, don’t feel like you have to review everything, but instead, do you have a few comments to make for people in your field, perhaps some insight into your particular discipline or methodology?

We would love to know what you think.