IOL Strength and Conditioning

 2 DVD set, filmed at Michael’s facility in Winchester, Massachusetts, 2007, 97 minutes

The goal of this DVD, which it successfully accomplishes, is to help personal trainers and strength coaches discover the differences between flexibility and mobility, and to learn how to develop both. You’ve read Michael’s original Joint-by-Joint Training article, and Gray’s follow-up, Expanding on the Joint-by-Joint Concept, but what do you do with the information? You get it: The body a stack of bones connected through the joint segments. How do you program with this new stack-of-bones understanding? This DVD picks up where the articles leave off.

Incidentally, if you haven’t read and re-read both of those commentaries, break away and do that now. Here’s MB’s Joint-by-Joint Training, and here’s Grays’ Expanding on the Joint-by-Joint Concept.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Where the stress transfers when joint mobility isn’t acceptable
• Mobility vs flexibility — the length of the muscles vs how motion works to get the joints moving easier
• Shows how we fake mobility with compensation when mobility isn’t optimal
• What to look for in terms of quality movement
• What Michael may not be using or doing as much as in previous years
• Stability needs of the knee, and how this relates to the hip — the hip stabilizes the knee and responds to what the foot does
• Gray Cook RNT tricks using bands to trick muscles to fire better
• Plenty of progression of difficulty in various movements
• Unique set of needs at the hip, need active hip mobility to keep the low back stable and pain-free
• Lengthy discussion of hip musculature, especially the piriformis, adductors and IT band
• Tissue quality issues, the need of passive hip mobility, tissue density vs length
• Foam and other rolling implements

Michael’s placed a renewed importance on the value of stretching, in particular the Gary Gray concept of three-dimensional stretching using multiple planes of motion, for example a saggital stretch with a bit of light transverse plane motion. Michael explains how to think through the idea of tissue length to clarify creation of a better stretching program, although you can also simply follow his program as shown on the DVD.

You’ll find examples of his favorite stretches, including his full hip stretching protocol with specific examples of how to move the hip against a stable femur, stretching the hip rotators, and the more rare concept of psoas stretching.  You’ll gain an understanding hip flexion, as per Shirley Sarhmann and Mark Comerford, and grasp the idea of overuse problems vs weaknesses.

The second DVD opens with a conversation about the Boyle lunge matrix, the progression from saggital plane mobility through frontal plane mobility and into transverse plane activity. As Michael completes this section, he transitions from the static squat versions to the dynamic lunges, to the lunge reaches with a resisted component, careful to point out the difference between a panoramic and a multi-planar lunge matrix.

He then moves to the lumbar region, describing the need for lumbar stability instead of mobility. This is a fairly lengthy section pointing out exercises he’s moved away from and those he uses in his program today. Expect to spend some time on the core section to discover what positions he’s now using for core training, including specifics of what to look for as you watch others, then moving to his isometric progressions for higher difficulty. Again we get to see what his athletes and clients are doing now, and what they’re no longer doing… and why.

Next we move to the oft-neglected thoracic region, where Michael again explains how thorax mobility factors into the joint-by-joint concept. How do we fix this? Michael demonstrates the trick, then carries forward to the scapulae and shoulder girdle lecture and a substantial shoulder circuit demonstration. This is another area in which Michael really shines.

This DVD set is a complete lecture and demonstration of how to use the idea of mobile and stable joints in your training warm-ups. If you haven’t yet put this in practice, this is your key to putting the joint concept into motion in your training. Get your copy of Michael Boyle’s Joint by Joint Warm-up and Training DVD from this link via Perform Better. Note: the PB sales page shows this as a 60-minute DVD, however this is in fact 97 minutes.