IOL Strength and Conditioning

This is part 10, the final piece of our 10-week series in which Gray further develops the 10 movement principles he presented in Chapter 15 of his book, Movement.

Here’s a pdf of the full set of 10 Movement Principles.
You are welcome to share this with friends.

Principle 10: The routine practice of self-limiting exercises can maintain the quality of our movement perceptions and behaviors and preserve our unique adaptability that modern conveniences erode.

When corrections have done their jobs and it’s time to get back to exercise, this is your opportunity to prevent future problems. The addition of self­-limiting exercises to the exercise program or as preparation or cool down can keep authentic patterns maintained. Since self-limiting exercises offer greater challenges, you can create situations to use these as a form of play or self-competition.

This is the bow I hope everybody gets to when reading Movement, because if they stop at Principle 9, they’ll literally think Gray Cook is a corrective exercise geek who doesn’t appreciate ‘bad ass’ strength training and exceptional feats of athleticism.

I like getting after it. I have accidents. I hurt myself all the time. I’m very much into pushing the limits. I really want people to explore as much physical capacity as they have.

If you’ve done your homework and have gotten your body right, go out and have fun. Run a marathon. Do an ultra. Fight somebody in an organized setting. Play some golf. Do whatever.

But self-limiting exercise means exercise that’s the 180-degree opposite of climbing on a treadmill, plugging into your iPod and just blindly becoming a rat on a wheel.

Self-engaging exercise and self-limiting exercise is balancing on a beam. It’s doing an inverted bottom-up kettlebell press or a Turkish getup. It’s doing some tumbling or gymnastics. These are all things that require us to be fully engaged. This engagement really closes a loop on the mind-body situation.

Here’s my thing if you have dysfunction. Our standard for this is anything below a ‘2,’ anything that’s an asymmetry or anything with pain in your movement screen. If you have a dysfunction, work on it. Clean it up. Get it fixed — get some help. Once you get above that cut-point, you don’t have to necessarily do six hours a week of foam rolling, then do your correctives. Make sure your corrective is solid and that you’ve made a true change.

Some of the activities I put in the Movement book are true examples of self-limiting exercise where they require engagement as well as a good blend of mobility and stability. Use some of those exercises in your weekly routine to really challenge all the different faculties you’ve brought together by recapturing some of your movement. Do this in exchange for becoming a corrective junkie.

I’d like to think that a few times a year I get back in shape after all this travel. My movement screen is not great, but it’s adequate. Without any stretching or foam rolling, I can maintain a great movement screen just by doing a few Turkish getups on each side, whether I’m weight training, doing stand-up paddleboarding or doing a little jogging.

All of those planes of movement and all of those movement patterns are in a Turkish getup. Many of them are also in a yoga sun salutation. Grab something that works for you and do it. It’s not so much done for corrective strategy. It’s self-limiting.

Please click here for a longer discussion of self-limiting exercise.

Ready for more?

Listen to Gray’s self-limiting exercise lecture

Order Movement, available in hardcover, paperback and e-book.

Consider the live workshop DVD, Applying the FMS Model

Excerpt from Gray Cook’s book Movement

Click here to download a larger pdf of this self-limiting exercise chart

Self-limiting exercises make us think, and even make us feel more connected to exercise and to movement. They demand greater engagement and produce greater physical awareness. Self-limiting exercises do not offer the easy confidence or quick mastery provided by a fitness machine.

The earliest exercise forms were self-limiting—they required mindfulness and technique. Idiot-proof equipment and the conditioning equivalent of training wheels did not exist. Great lifters learned to lift great; great fighters learned to fight great; great runners learned to run great. Their qualities and quantities were intertwined.

Self-limiting exercise demands mindfulness and an awareness of movement, alignment, balance and control. In self-limiting exercise, a person cannot just pop on the headphones and walk or run on the treadmill, fingering the playlist or watching the news on a well-placed monitor. Self-limiting exercise demands engagement.

The clearest example of self-limiting exercise is barefoot running. While running barefoot, the first runners connected with the sensory information in the soles of their feet. This works perfectly—this is the very reason the soles of the feet have such a uniquely dense distribution of sensory nerves. This provides a window to our environment, like the nerves in our hands, eyes and ears. The information provided by sensory nerves in the soles help all who walk on two feet continually adjust their movement, stride, rhythm, posture and breathing to meet changes in the terrain.

The modern running shoe allows us to ignore a sensory perspective of running that is only second to vision, and, as you know, the increase in running-related injuries paralleled running shoe development. When running barefoot, over-striding and heel striking is not an option—it produces jarring, discomfort and pain because it is not authentic. Is it not a bit peculiar that the quick twinges of pain refine the barefoot runner’s stride to help avoid running injuries, while the comfort of the modern running shoe later exchanged those friendly twinges for debilitating pain?

The modern runner uses braces to cover a weakness, often not taking responsibility to rehabilitate a problem, or dissatisfied with the rehabilitation process and its incomplete outcome. Christopher McDougall reveals this concept in an amazing story in his book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, a story that reminds us to temper all technologic advancements against historical facts and time-tested principles. He touches on medical and biomechanical issues, prehistoric man, exercise concepts and a detachment from the joy of movement we exchange for superficial results.

This book is highly recommended for trainers, coaches and rehabilitation professionals to help them see their respective professions through the eyes of the inquisitive, chronically injured runner. Christopher’s investigation and story connects important dots we can all appreciate. In his journey, he discovered rehabilitation and coaching wisdom that is logical and simple. The problem is that he had to dig to find it. Part of his digging was caused by our incomplete practices of movement assessment, exercise and rehabilitation.

Examples of other natural, self-limiting categories are governed by breathing, grip strength, balance, correct posture and coordination. Some exercises combine two or more self-limiting activities, and each has natural selective and developmental benefits. These exercises produce form and function while positioning the entire movement matrix for multiple benefits. As we train movement, anatomical structures model themselves around natural stresses.

Self-limiting activities should become the cornerstone of your training programs, not as preventive maintenance and risk management, but as movement authentication—to keep it real. The limitations these exercises impose keep us honest and allow our weakest links to hold us back, as they should.

Used correctly, self-limiting exercises improve poor movements and maintain functional movement quality. These exercises are challenging and produce a high neural load, which is to say they require engagement and increased levels of motor control at the conscious and reflexive level.

Anytime we don’t acknowledge our weakest links or confront them in training, we demonstrate the same behavior that caused our collective functional movement patterns to erode in the first place. Embedded in each workout, the self-limiting activities continually whisper the message that we cannot become stronger than our weakest links.

A word of caution: These activities are not magic. They don’t automatically install movement quality. They simply provide the opportunity should the individual be up to the challenge. Each of these activities imposes natural obstacles and requires technical attention. There is usually a coordination of attributes not often used together, such as balance and strength or quickness and alignment. These activities usually require instruction to provide safety and maximize benefits. If you do not respect them, they can impose risk.

However, patience, attention to detail and expert instruction will provide a natural balancing of movement abilities. These do not have to make up the entire exercise program. Instead, they offer mental and physical challenges against natural limitations and technical standards. These activities will not only provide variety, but should ultimately produce physical poise, confidence and higher levels of movement competence.

Ready for more?

Visit Gray’s site to learn more about his movement principles

Download a pdf of sample self-limiting exercises

Listen to Gray’s self-limiting exercise lecture

Order Movement, available in hardcover, paperback and e-book.

Boris Bachmann, the guy who recorded the squat techniques lecture (he’s also the Squat Rx guy from YouTube), asked me the other day, “Are there some sleeper lectures you think are absolutely fantastic that might have gotten overlooked so far? Let me know and I will do some impulse buying.”

Boy that’s a real hard one because for me, I’m more into the talking than the learning, if you know what I mean. So while trainers might really go for one and coaches might really go for another and therapists yet another, I get a kick out of just listening to the talking… Dan John’s (goal setting), Dick Tyler’s (storytelling), Chip Conrad’s Sweet Chant and Lou Shuler’s Hero’s Journey. People like me who like bio stories will enjoy listening to Ric Drasin tell his tale.

Mike Mahler’s discussion of hormone optimization was fabulous (hold on to your wallet — I ended up buying four new supplements to try!), as was Jerry Brainum’s on supplements and Robert Yang’s on gluten. Brooks Kubik’s talk is on training for senior lifters, learning how to plan recovery, real good for some of this crowd. Tom Furman’s was excellent, especially as we get a little older and lose mobility.

Charlie Weingroff’s is a real big learning circle, very nice, and Evan Osar kicks in there on the human movement side as well. I really enjoyed Robb Rogers’ and also Tim Anderson’s; those were both a little different and off the mainstream.. stuff you probably haven’t heard before.

Oh, jeez, I can’t believe Boris got me doing this.

Anybody with trigger point curiosity, Perry Nickelston’s is super; there are a couple lectures on back pain (Eric Beard and Sam Visnic, and Eric also has one on shoulders), and one by Tom Patrick about his journey through back pain and back to golf.

Locked up t-spine? Sue Falsone is her usual wonderful self. Foot pain? Ron Jones has you covered. Wondering if all this fascia science is real, or important? Paul Ingraham dives into that one.

Want to learn something unexpected? Stacy Barrows and Martha Peterson. Need a Gray Cook fix? Self-limiting exercise, plus a discussion with Craig Liebenson and one with Joe Heiler. Lee Burton’s work with the core is unmatched, as is Brett Jones on corrective exercise and strength… short but complete overviews there, then you’d just get to work, right?

Brian Bott works with football players, Brijesh Patel with college athletes. Dave Whitley teaches breathing drills, Jim Schmitz has been coaching O lifting since the ’60s. Chiropractic literally saved Keith Wassung’s life — Keith Norris, Skyler Tanner and Mark Alexander are physical culture slash paleo crusaders; Mark Snow works group and bootcamp trainees using the FMS, and Pat Rigsby knows the business side of bootcamps like nobody else.

Michael Boyle’s talk on fat loss — well, Mike’s just great at everything, really — and Mike Roussell talks fat loss like a lean guy, too.

The Nicks — Winkelman and Tumminello– are superb coaches and know how to teach (the Winkelman talk is pretty cutting-edge, coaches should check that out), ditto Vince McConnell, who talks about privately coaching athletes in season in their sports. Zach EvenEsh is an extremely successful high school athlete coach, and in his lecture he tells how he trains them.

Galina Denzel is a specialist in training pregnant women, and tell us not only how the body changes during pregnancy, but how to train a woman to get her ready for delivery and baby rearing. If you train women, or if you’re pregnant, this one’s a must.

Oh! And there’s this Boris Bachmann guy who really knows squat.

Here’s your link to the Movementlectures.com Full Lecture Listing.

Had a fun conversation with Charlie Weingroff the other day in which we decided to partner up to release his popular 12-hour Training = Rehab, Rehab = Training DVD set in digital format. It’s ready today: Charlie Weingroff’s Training = Rehab, Rehab = Training downloadable video set, $20 per disk.

From disk one, Charlie discusses Gray Cook’s joint by joint approach to training, made popular by Michael Boyle

From disk two, Charlie talks about his definition of the core, and covers a bit about how the diaphragm works.

From disk three, Charlie talks of how little we know about how pain influences motor control.

From disk four,  Charlie demonstrates proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching — PNF stretching for hamstrings.

From disk five, Charlie explains Professor Vladimir Janda’s famous crossed syndromes, what they are, where they come from and what attention we need to give them.

Also from disk five, here’s a look at upper body rolling patterns.

From disk six,  Charlie demonstrates RNT used for a faulty deep squat with a Gray Cook band.

Charlie Weingroff’s Training = Rehab, Rehab = Training downloadable video set, $20 per disk.

I worked on Dave Whitley’s breathing practice lecture again today, and was reminded of how badly I’d been breathing for the past 30 years. You don’t really think of it until someone teaches you — and maybe you’re breathing fine, but unless you know enough to feel the difference between chest and belly breathing, you don’t know for sure. When I first started studying this, I didn’t even know air was supposed to get deep in the belly; I thought air went into the chest.

The first clue, and it was a big one, was a Feldenkrais breathing lesson, in which we were taught to seesaw the air from the chest to the belly, alternating between breaths, and then to direct the air to different areas. Huh! That was interesting.

A few months later, I saw Dave Whitley and Geoff Neupert do a YouTube demonstration of crocodile breathing, and started practicing that.

It didn’t take long to feel like I got it, but then, a couple of years ago, Charlie Weingroff said he could see my breathing in the chest and belly, but there was nothing going on in the middle. I had no clue what he meant, and even less how to fix it. A year went by, and along comes Kelly Stoll, a Rolfer, who also noticed the missing link between top and bottom. She grabbed the fascia just under my ribcage, pulled up — way up — and told me to breathe air into the pulls, repeating the process a half dozen times to traverse my torso.

The next day, I noticed the space just under my ribcage moving in and out smoothly, the place that had been still before. That was the day I discovered a nagging mid-back pain I’d had for years was… gone.

It isn’t possible to put the feeling of that discovery into words, not for me anyway. But I’ll tell you one thing: I want you to learn this for yourself.

Here’s Dave’s breathing drills lecture: Fundamental Breathing Drills.

The movementlectures.com site launch last week went super smooth and we didn’t crash the server, not even once! Nearly a year in the making, we now have 45 lectures available for immediate download, ranging from exercise technique to physical rehab, from physical culture to goal setting — there’s something for everyone, and inexpensively, with instant access. There are another 17 lectures nearly ready for publication, and a dozen recorders jetting around the country collecting new material. Which of these is your new favorite lecture?

Boris Bachmann: Squat Talk | Brett Jones: Corrective Exercise Essentials | Brett Jones: Key Concepts in Corrective Exercise | Brett Jones: Strength for Success | Brian Bott: Building a Bulletproof Program | Brian Bott: Training the Trenches, Football | Brijesh Patel: It’s Not All About the Sets and Reps | Brooks Kubik: Strength Training for Older Adults | Charlie Weingroff: Trainable Human System | Chip Conrad: Why On Earth? Excerpts from Our Sweet Chant of Frantic Power | Craig Liebensen and Gray Cook: Dialogue on Function | Dan John: Intervention

Dan John: Goal Setting, Second Millennium, Plus a Decade | Eric Beard: Anatomy of Shoulder Impingement and Beyond | Eric Beard: Understanding Lower Back Pain: Functional Anatomy Interventions and Prevention | Evan Osar: Strategies and Techniques to Improve Human Movement | Gray Cook: Applying the Functional Movement Screen Model | Gray Cook: Self-Limiting Exercise | Jerry Brainum: Supplements: Those that Work vs Those that Don’t | Jim Schmitz: Olympic Style Weightlifting for Strength, Health, Physique, Fitness and Sport

Joe Heiler and Gray Cook: Meaningful Impairments | Keith Norris, Skyler Tanner and Mark Alexander: Paleo Discussion | Keith Wassung: Introduction to Chiropractic | Lee Burton: Core Testing and Assessment | Lou Schuler: Hero’s Journey into Fitness | Mark Snow: Using the FMS in a Group or Bootcamp Setting | Martha Peterson: Relieving Chronic Muscle Pain With Somatic Education | Michael Boyle: Fat Loss Secrets | Mike Mahler: Importance of Optimizing Hormones Naturally | Mike Roussell: 21 Ways to Lose More Weight

Nick Tumminello: Practical Program Design | Nick Winkelman: Coaching Science: Theory into Practice | Pat Rigsby: Boot Camp Financials | Paul Ingraham: Fascia Science: Does it Even Matter? | Perry Nickelston: Triggerpoints for Pain | Ric Drasin: The Golden Years | Robb Rogers: Functional Training vs Performance Training | Robert Yang: Nothing Wholesome in Eating Whole Grains | Ron Jones: Health from the Ground Up: A Practical Guide to Understanding Feet, Ankles and Shoes

Stacy Barrows: Foam Roller Methods for Optimal Posture and Movement Organization | Sue Falsone: Thoracic Spine: The Missing Link to Core Stability | Tim Anderson: Miracle of Crawling | Tom Furman: Ability to Move | Vince McConnell: Role of a Personal Strength Conditioning Coach | Zach EvenEsh: Training and Development of the High School Athlete

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Episode Twenty-Five:
Stability training has been a popular training method in recent years, but are we thinking about it correctly? Is motor control a better concept?

Episode Twenty-Four:
The benefits of barefoot training are many, but some of the results are conflicting. Why train barefoot—and when is it best not to?

Episode Twenty-Three:
What does Gray mean when he says, “If you can’t touch your toes, don’t deadlift”?

Episode Twenty-Two:
What do you do when someone can’t perform a test due to a physical limitation?

Episode Twenty-One:
Here Gray describes the “Three Rs” concept of fitness and rehabilitation

Episode Twenty:
Let’s see what Gray has to say about exercise and chronic pain

by Gray Cook

Human movement is a complex thing. The many systems of the body that assist us in growing, developing and becoming movement-learning machines are a literal miracle by no stretch of the term. Understanding human behavior will never be an exact science whether we look at emotional, social, group dynamic, or human behavior as it relates to movement patterns.

The book I wrote on movement titled Movement is 408 pages, and that’s intimidating. My point with such in-depth work was not to intimidate readers or scare people out of the movement professions. It was to make them consider everything that goes into movement-learning function and dysfunction, and then de-complicate the process with a systematic checklist approach to common movement behaviors and tendencies.

In a previous article on function, I mentioned a new book introduced to me by Mike Boyle called The Checklist Manifesto. This book has a consistent and parallel theme to the other books Why We Make Mistakes and Blunder. It talks about how the more complex a human endeavor becomes and the more technical and skillful a job becomes, the more it’s necessary to rely on a systematic checklist approach for structure and consistency.

I spent the first part of the Movement book talking about the complexity of the human movement learning system and going over some motor learning principles as well as musculoskeletal limitations. But my point, by the time you get to the middle of the book, was to distill these rules and principles down to a movement-based checklist that allows the user to take immediate and consistent action following systems and principles that promote movement change.

In a way, you could say I got real complex in my own paranoid attempt not to leave anything out. In contrast, the functional movement systems should be simple, effective and inexpensive to use so a majority of users can benefit. It can be an effective part of physical education, personal fitness, strength conditioning and rehabilitation in the future.

Since I wrote Movement, it has been my mission to make sure my lectures show a different side of functional movement systems. Where the book seems very in-depth and technical, I want my lectures to demonstrate the logic and consistency of following a system when we develop exercise programs or try to change or improve the way people move.

As I’ve said before, the purpose of the movement screen is not to legislate or enforce movement perfection. It is to make us all agree that there must be a tipping point, a point of minimal functional competency. Anything below this level will probably require a different technology than simple conditioning if movement is to improve.

Therefore, I went on a journey and shared my idea with Lee Burton, my business partner, and Chris Poirier of Perform Better, the key sponsor for the majority of our Functional Movement Screen workshops. We devised the idea of a pre-conference symposium at the three Perform Better summits in 2011—Rhode Island, Chicago and Long Beach.

In a nutshell, this was our idea: We wanted to do a quick overview of the system for people who were both certified in the movement screen or just learning about it, and then pull people from the audience and have them screened right there. From this, we took their data and put these on a score sheet. We then projected each score sheet onto the screen for everyone to see, and then we discussed programing for the individual while considering their movement screen alongside the other information they provided. For those who were unable to attend the events, we turned the cameras on… and did not turn them off. We knew we would have some great spontaneous examples, and we captured the whole thing.

The reason I call this Functional Movement Improv is because we felt like an improvisational comedian who takes a topic and immediately spins it into a funny skit. We attempted to create a training program for an individual from a screen and a few questions. This was ambitious to say the least, because we were not creating programs for just any client or athlete. We were challenging the current programs of fitness, performance and rehabilitation professionals. To put it a different way, we were programming the pros. Our secret weapon: The movement screen.

Each time someone from our audience came to the stage, the new program was constructed following a movement-based checklist. The rules of movement are simple and easy to follow, but cannot be overlooked. Each time we did this, the people onstage learned they should be doing something they currently were not doing. They also learned they should not be doing something they currently were doing.

Our point in the drill was if we can improve the programming of exercise professionals with a 10-minute movement profile, imagine what you can do for your clients, athletes and patients with the extra information.

Assisting me at each Summit were some of our functional movement screening instructors, along with our functional movement staff. On the last two events including the Summit in Long Beach, I had my long-term co-pilot, Brett Jones, helping me.

Certainly without exception, every person who was screened who then came onstage to have the screen exposed to the world learned something they did not already know about movement, and discovered something to add or subtract from their exercise programs.

The attendees for this Summit were some of the best of the best trainers, strength coaches and rehabilitation professionals I’ve met. They had done their homework and knew their stuff. They were also a surprisingly fit group of people who not only taught and learned training, but lived it as well.

My source of pride here is that our little system introduced these people to holes, inconsistencies and insights into their own programming. The point of the drill was not to demonstrate that I’m a good exercise programmer, because I didn’t do anything that wasn’t already exposed as simple movement logic in the Movement book. I followed my own 10 principles and basically questioned them about movement patterns they were or were not doing in their exercise programming.

When the movement screen showed us a dysfunction, we questioned any conditioning exercise pushing against that dysfunction. When the movement screen showed the need for a correction, we introduced corrective strategy. If the movement screen did not find dysfunction in a pattern, we didn’t find a problem with conditioning that pattern.

In a very improvisational open format, we turned exercise program design into a systematic process—not simply based on a person’s goals, available equipment or my background or preference of exercise. We turned it into a process that started with the individual’s own unique signature or thumbprint of movement.

People learn faster when we figure out the way they like to learn. Some are introverts. Some are extroverts. Some want to learn in auditory format. Some are kinesthetic learners. Some need to read, practice and then read again.

If we know the way someone learns, we can design learning systems that address their needs in a more efficient manner. Taking a movement profile does the same thing for physical movement.

Watch the following excerpts from this four-hour presentation where we built a case for movement screening, demonstrated how efficient the model can be, and then closed the day by revisiting the principles that allowed us, all from different exercise and rehabilitation backgrounds, to find common ground in a movement profile.

I hope you enjoy! ~Gray Cook

Click here to review the details of the 4-disc DVD set, or place an order.

4-disc DVD set, a joint project from Movement Education Group and Functional Movement Systems

This live workshop, filmed in HD video using four cameras, took place during Perform Better’s Long Beach pre-conference workshop, August 2011, and features Gray Cook assisted by Brett Jones. Their most recent DVDs, Kalos Sthenos, Dynami and Club Swinging Essentials, covered how to do specific exercises right. This one flips that idea and instead covers how to pick the right exercises. It’s a comprehensive 4-disc Applying the FMS Model DVD set that will fill in the blanks and answer your questions about using the Functional Movement Screen when working with your clients, athletes and patients. Although different people have a variety of programming needs, we all require a baseline movement map to enhance safety and maximize results, and this workshop lays down that foundation.

A properly executed movement screen provides a unique perspective, and in this workshop Gray shows us how to use the basic technology as a tool to develop programming unique to each individual. But it’s much more than a movement screen discussion, because what Gray is best at is seeing how people move, how we learn to move, and how we re-learn movement. He’s gifted at explaining what most of us don’t even see, and you’ll find yourself pausing the video over and over to stop and ponder concepts that he makes sound obvious, but that you’ve never considered.

Only about a third of the room had been through the Functional Movement Screen workshop. You don’t need to be FMS certified or even use the screens to benefit from this material. Certainly people who use the screens will get more practical use from the workshop, but Gray’s off-the-cuff pearls and insights? Over and over I found myself stopping to think through these simple-sounding ideas.

I was at the live event, listened to the audio file, edited the text file and worked through the video seven or eight times, and each time I discovered something new, something I missed the other times or that had a deeper meaning as I got more familiar with the ideas. For many trainers, strength coaches and medical professionals, this material could be the key to how you work with clients patients and athletes in the years to come.

The workshop covers the age spectrum of fitness clients, post-rehab clients and athletes of all levels. With tremendous insight and enthusiasm, Gray discusses the logic of movement that all of us share. And because this movement logic is common to all of us, you’ll be able to apply this new material in your work the very next day.

4-disc DVD set—nearly 4 hours, plus bonus material
Filmed live at a Perform Better Summit Workshop

Disk One
Introduction
Standard Operating Procedures
Movement Matters
Squat Discussion
Stabilization and Repatterning
Our Movement History

Disk Two
Functional Movement Screen Review
Scoring the Screens
Filters and Key Points
Live Screens
Scoring Criteria
Programming the Results

Disk Three
Screen Results Analysis
Order of Screen Priority
Hip Hinge and Deadlift Strategies
Movement Motor Learning
Movement Principles
Self-Limiting Exercise

Disk Four
Extra corrective strategies footage
Full lecture in MP3 audio format for listening in your car or on your portable device
A 61-page typeset transcript of the lecture
Movement Principles excerpt from the Movement book
FMS scoring criteria and verbal instructions
Presentation slides PDF
Video clips from Gray’s Powerpoint presentation
Self-limiting activities chart

you can order via this link.

While I can’t say we’re consistent… well, let’s just say it’s been fun. Here are the most recent episodes of Gray Cook Radio.

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Episode Nineteen:
Today Gray tells us about his summer MovNat experience and his conversations with Erwan LeCorre. Here’s where to find Erwan and his MovNat workshops.

Episode Eighteen:
Today Gray talks about his work on the Golf Digest golf combine

Episode Seventeen:
Now here’s a fun one: Gray’s take on isolation exercises—What’s a bodybuilder to do?

Episode Sixteen:
Today Gray talks about his Perform Better Pre-Conference Workshop. The full transcript is also available here.

Episode Fifteen:
In this episode we discuss the workout, specifically where do correctives go and when do we re-introduce sports training after a problem is found in the screen.

Episode Fourteen:
Let’s talk about brain science and a few popular books that teach it. The books Gray discusses are Brain Rules, The Talent Code, Talent is Overrated and Spark

Episode Thirteen:
Whatever happened to kettlebell snatches? And other tidbits kettlebell

Episode Twelve:
What exactly is dry needling? What does Gray use it for?
The dry needling school Gray mentioned is KinetaCore.

Episode Eleven:
Last week’s coverage of breathing and heart rate variability wasn’t enough. Let’s get a little more.
The monitor Gray talks about is the Polar FT80, and Polar’s overview of HRV is here. He also mentioned an iPhone ap called Ithlete, which you can find here.

Episode Ten:
In this episode, Gray begins to develop the topic of breathing

Published as a hardcover book in 2010, Gray Cook’s Movement: Functional Movement Systems, Screening, Assessment & Corrective Strategies is now available in softcover, $49.95. The books shipped from the printer Monday and will be in stock Friday.

I can say with confidence: Anyone who trains, coaches or treats individuals or teams will find value in this text.

Chapter 1—Introduction to Screening and Assessment
This introductory chapter builds the foundation you’ll need to fully understand the purpose of screening movement. You’ll learn the concept of movement patterns and how to recognize these patterns in action, as well as the history and primary goals of movement screening.

Chapter 2—Anatomical Science versus Functional Science
The next 16 pages expand on the differences between authentic movement and scientific anatomical function. The functional systems of muscles, joints and ligaments are covered, as are the fascial matrix, breathing and the neuromuscular network. Understanding movement deficiency and dysfunction and how these develop will illuminate your work, and clarify your explanations to your athletes, clients and patients.

Chapter 3—Understanding Movement
In Chapter 3, you’ll gain an appreciation of the natural laws of basic movement before specific, with an overview of how to use screening, testing and assessment to classify movement proficiency or deficiency. You’ll also get a summary of the differences between the two systems, the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) and the Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA).

Chapter 4—Movement Screening
Where in your intake process should you screen? Can you screen an injured client or athlete? This section will help you place movement screening in your existing business model, or it will show you where your program structure might be improved.

Chapter 5—Functional Movement Systems and Movement Patterns
This summary explains the differences between the two systems, the FMS for fitness professionals and strength coaches, and the SFMA for medical professionals. You’ll get a brief look at the systems, and finish with an appreciation of primitive and higher-level movement patterns.

Chapter 6—Functional Movement Screen Descriptions
The chapter used to cover the FMS will teach you the seven basic screens in detail, including where to stand, what to watch for during the movements and how to plan your modifications. You’ll get a description of each screen, the purpose of each, tips for testing, implications and photographs showing how to score each test.

Chapter 7—SFMA Introduction and Top-Tier Tests
The top-tier assessments of the SFMA are covered in these 26 pages, which contain a discussion of the overlying considerations of functional versus dysfunctional and painful versus non-painful, the overriding criteria of the SFMA system. The seven elements of the top-tier will direct you to the breakout tests found in Chapter 8.

Chapter 8—SFMA Assessment Breakout Descriptions and Flowcharts
Taking 58 pages and 66 photographs to cover the SFMA breakouts will serve to remind medical professionals of the individual assessments, and at the same time make fitness trainers and strength coaches aware of the tests used by professionals to whom they refer clients and athletes. The rationale for each of the breakout regions will pull the process together for you as it simplifies the overall approach.

Chapter 9—Analyzing the Movements in Screens and Assessments
Chapter 9 teaches how to analyze the various test results. Using the tests of the Functional Movement Screen as the base, you’ll learn what mistakes most beginners make in screening, how to distinguish between stability and mobility problems and how to determine asymmetries. Here you’ll get your first introduction to reverse patterning (RP) and reactive neuromuscular training (RNT), two of the primary corrective tools of the Functional Movement Systems arsenal.

Chapter 10—Understanding Corrective Strategies
This begins the wrap-up: What do you do with the resulting screen and assessment information? The 20 pages of Chapter 10 comprise the performance pyramid and how to use it to form your corrective strategies. Understanding the differences between correct and corrective exercises, between challenging versus difficult, and having a selection of self-limiting exercises in your exercise menu will give you confidence as you assign and program exercises.

Chapter 11—Developing Corrective Strategies
Now that you’ve discovered dysfunctional patterns in your clients, athletes and patients, the next section will guide you in the corrective decisions that make up the three primary categories of mobility, stability and movement pattern retraining. You’ll get comparisons of conditioning and corrective exercise, movement prep and movement correction, skill training and corrective prioritization, and understand when each is appropriate.

Chapter 12—Building the Corrective Framework
This chapter provides a checklist for your corrective decisions: pain, purpose, posture, position, pattern and plan. Even though every person’s movement is unique, without this framework, your corrective path will not be as clear as it could be. You’ll also become familiar with the basic structure involving special considerations and populations that may make up part of your client or patient base.

Chapter 13—Movement Pattern Corrections
Chapter 13 builds on your knowledge of basic mobility and stability corrections and movement pattern retraining. Using passive, active and assistive techniques, you’ll be able to help your clients, athletes and patients recover lost mobility. Understanding stability and motor control, transitional postures and using facilitation techniques such as reactive neuromuscular training will give you the tools to challenge that new mobility. You’ll also become proficient at rolling after practicing the material in this rich chapter.

Chapter 14—Advanced Corrective Strategies
Finally, in the 24 remarkable pages of Chapter 14, you’ll learn how to make corrective exercise an experience. This is how corrective exercise actually works in the human body, and the thorough discussion found in this chapter will teach you how to create this for your clientele. Using PNF, RNT, reverse patterning, conscious loading, resisted and self-limiting exercises, you’ll grasp the concept of the manageable mistake zone, and you’ll be able to use these ideas and techniques to stand out in your crowded professional field.

Chapter 15—In Conclusion
This wrap-up section pulls the material together for one last review of where the industry is now, and where it’s heading. When you finish this section, you’ll have a complete understanding of the 10 principles of the Functional Movement System. These principles will guide you in learning and training authentic movement.

Appendices

• Michael Boyle: Joint-by-Joint Concept
• Gray Cook: Expanding on the Joint-by-Joint Approach
• Greg Rose: SFMA Score Sheets and Flowcharts
• Laurie McLaughlin: Introduction to Breathing
• Gray Cook: Introduction to Heart Rate Variability
• Gray Cook: Functional Movement Systems Team List
• Gray Cook: Early Perspective and the Jump Study
• Phil Plisky: Core Testing and Functional Goniometry
• Lee Burton: FMS Scoring Criteria and Score Sheet
• Authors: FMS Verbal Instructions
• Gray Cook: Conventional Deep Squat Evaluation Process
• Patient Self Evaluation Forms
• List of Illustrations
• References
• Index

About Movement, head of the Russian Kettlebell Certification and author of Enter the Kettlebell! Pavel Tsatsouline wrote, “Once a decade comes out a book that you will keep reading, rereading, and crowding with notes until it falls apart. Then you buy a new copy and enthusiastically start over. In the 1990s it was Verkhoshansky and Siff’s ‘Supertraining.’ In the 2000s McGill’s ‘Ultimate Back.’ Enter the 2010s and Cook’s ‘Movement.’ It is a game changer.”

In the turmoil of Dan’s Intervention seminar, as we filmed for DVD, I took in… pretty much nothing. Later, I listened as the attendees gush (it’s true, they did), but it wasn’t until my fourth or fifth pass through the material that the built-in critic who poses as an editor began to subside and the breadth of the material began to seep in. Dan made such an organized, methodical march through a mountain of material—a solid thirty years of learning and coaching—that much later that I realized what a volume of thinking had been so simply laid out. It’s, I guess you could call it… stunning.

Here’s a clip in which Dan shows his newest concept for teaching hip hinging, the Hinge Assessment Tool, HAT.

Included as Intervention
3-discs of workshop lecture
Various handouts, including a new e-booklet on Intervention
Full lecture transcript pdf
Full lecture mp3 audio file

Disc One: 75 minutes
Introduction to Intervention
The Health Lights System
The Fitness Spiral
Absolute Strength
The Impact of a Strength Coach
Qualities
Quadrants

Disc Two: 67 minutes
Age: Hypertrophy & Joint Mobility
Basic Human Movements
Patterning
HATE, Hinge Assessment Tool
Squat Patterning
Loaded Carries
Slow Strength, Grinds
Standards
The Four Steps
Asymmetrical Training

Disc Three: 70 minutes
The Triad Combinations
Testing
Rep Rules
Corrective Exercises
Scheduling Correctives, Strength and Skills
Programming the Elements
Example of Programming for an Elite Athlete
Other Programming Examples
Practicing Intervention
The Warmups
The Intervention Tool Kit

In the Realistic Reps clip below, Dan introduces his thinking behind rep ranges.

Over the course of the editing, I must have watched this seven or eight times, and each time, something else stuck out, some little nugget I’d missed the other times through. That’s one reason I’m especially pleased (giggle to myself from time to time) that we added a a surprise to the package: The entire lecture is transcribed — there’s a PDF of the workshop included on the DVD. And oh, yes… wait for it… we also included an MP3 audio file so you can listen to it again during your flight to Perform Better. Or maybe it’ll have to serve as a week’s worth of commute learning. We’re also going to release the MP3 audio file and transcript as a stand-alone product later this summer.

All Dan’s handouts are on the DVD, plus he’s written new material in a PDF only available on this DVD, to expand on his thoughts since recording the workshop. This is one fabulous package, and we’re so confident you’ll agree, we’ll guarantee it. If you missed the video clips from last week or you’d like to place an order, grab a ride on this link, here.

Anthony Carey
Filmed at IDEA, 2008, 1 hour and 43 minutes

Anthony Carey, of Function First, is a terrific resource for our corrective exercise learning; I’m a big fan. This is a live seminar dvd in which you’ll learn how the muscles and fascia are connected, how they work together and how the slings influence movement and pain. There are seven chapter sections as follows.

Chapter 1: Function Anatomy: Myofascial Slings
In this section, Anthony provides an overview of how anatomy works functionally as opposed to what we learn in Gray’s Anatomy. He’ll show you how each part of the muscle/fascial system fits together , including how fascia changes with age.

Chapter 2: Characteristics of a Muscle Sling
Here you’ll learn the difference of how we address fascial slings through exercise as opposed to how massage therapists work with the fascial layers with their hands. Anthony spends this section covering the purpose of the fascia and fascial slings, and how they work in movement. Here you’ll see how each element affects the next, including a clear image of how a triggerpoint jams up length in a sling.

Chapter 3: Tensegrity = Tension Integrity
Anthony gives us a short overview of Buckminster Fuller’s concept of tensegrity, and demonstrates how one side of a structure influences the other.

Chapter 4: Examples of Major Myofascial Slings
This section is where we learn how to put Tom Myers’ Anatomy Trains material into action. Where are the slings? How do they work together?

Chapter 5: Examples of Myofascial Lines
And here Anthony explains the Myers concept of mysfascial lines, preparing for the next section of exercise examples to follow.

Chapter 6: Exercise Examples of Slings and Lines
Now we get into action. This is the longest section of the DVD in which Anthony uses at least three points of contact to demonstrate the slings. He’s tweaked some yoga moves to help each person feel or stretch the sling connections. He’s also careful to explain the common errors most people make in joint rotation when trying to feel the work the fascial slings. Many of these are common stretches, some with minor adjustments from stretches you’re familiar with, and others are quite unusual. In the strengthening section, he uses rubber tubing and a medicine ball.

Chapter 7: Summary
This short section is a simple overview of the workshop material.

If you’re not familiar with how to stretch or strengthen along the myofascial slings, this DVD will be extremely useful in your education. Here’s a link to the product on the IDEA site: Anthony Carey Functional Anatomy, Myofascial Slings. Even the yoga experts in the participating audience struggled with a few of his twists—these are not your normal moves.

I spent some time with Anthony at IDEA, which I wrote about here. You can learn more about the myofascial sling action from Chuck Wolf and Tom Myers.

by Evan Osar, DC
Fitness Education Seminars

Do you know what is the most sensitive area of the spine is?

Generally, people often think about the low back—the inordinate number of injuries and costs related to its treatment. Interestingly enough, the lumbar spine and pelvis are relatively stable albeit stressed by our poor habits and conditioning.

So what is the most sensitive area of the spine?  The cervical spine.

Why do I say this?

Just consider—

• The thoracic spine is protected by the rib cage and some of the largest muscles in the body;
• The lumbar spine and sacrum are protected and supported by the largest muscles in the body (including but not limited to the gluteus maximus, lumbar erectors, and abdominals) and the most dense fascial network in the body (the thoracolumbar fascia);
• The cervical spine by comparison has some of the smallest muscles supporting it and doesn’t have the luxury of ribs or pelvis for protection;
• It also holds a 10-14 pound object on top of it (the head) which supports the most sensitive structures in our body— the brain and brainstem as well as the 12 pairs of cranial nerves;
• The cervical spine protects 8 pairs of spinal nerves and 2 of the major arteries of the brain (anteriorly the carotid artery and posteriorly the vertebral artery);
• And a spinal cord injury occurring at the level of the cervical spine will affect function in the entire body possibly leading to quadruplegia, respiratory system compromise, and if significant enough, death.

So hopefully you can appreciate how important and sensitive this area of the body is. Unfortunately many of the things we do in life drive dysfunction of the cervical spine. What are the top 3 things we do that most dramatically affect its function?

1. Forward head posture:

For every one inch the head moves in front of the cervical spine, an additional weight of the head is added to the loads the cervical spine muscles now have to support. For example if your head is one inch in front of your cervical spine, your neck muscles now have to support 20-28 pounds instead of 10-14 pounds. If the head is two inches in front, now you have to support 30-42 pounds. Just think of the ramifications for your clients who more than two inches of forward head posture!

2. What is the most common cause of stress to the cervical spine?

It’s not poor exercise choices. It’s not because your client works too much on the computer. It’s not even because you don’t stretch enough. The most common cause of the forward head posture is poor respiratory habits. Overuse of the accessory muscles, primarily the pectoralis minor, sternocleidomastoid, and scalenes pull the cervical spine and head forward. And because respiration is a 24/7 activity, no amount of stretching or swithcing exercises or jobs will alter this pattern.

3. Poor shoulder stabilization:

Using the neck improperly as an anchor for arm movement overly stresses the cervical spine and neural structures. This dysfunctional pattern is often seen with poor scapular stabilization and improper dissociation of the glenohumeral joint.

How do we stabilize the cervical spine?

CONCLUSION

To improve function of the entire neuromusculoskeletal system,

1. We must teach our clients how to stabilize their neck, shoulder, and upper back.

2. We must improve their ability to breathe from their diaphragm rather than over-utilizing their neck.

This approach will relieve the massive stress on the the brainstem, cervical portion of the spinal cord, and cervical spinal nerves ultimately affecting function of the upper extremity and entire nervous system.

Evan Osar is a practicing chiropractor, author and lecturer. You can review more of his material and his workshop schedule on his website, Fitness Education Seminars. His newsletter archive is here, and his video collection is here.

Boris Bachmann, of Squat RX

Dick Hartzell, the inventor of Jumpstretch bands, had a series of instructional videos covering all kinds of creative uses for stretching, mobility, and strengthening exercises. In the videos, Dick Hartzell encouraged the viewer to “shop around” with the stretches and positions. While “shopping around”, there were a few particular drills that I found personally very helpful for back pain and they are shown below. Some of them may be useful for you to – understand that the traction provided by bands in this manner could aggravate certain conditions, so If there are concerns, please consult with a medical professional before attempting.

Begin by wrapping the band around the back and onto one knee—give yourself more slack for the first knee. Getting the second loop around the other knee will be harder if you are taller or bigger. Use a lighter resistance band if this is the case.

On all fours, you can do glute and IT band stretches and “tactical frog” drills.  The bands provide a firm traction for the lumbar and hips region. Butterfly stretches are also a delight wearing bands.

The bottom position of the squat can be grooved with bands worn this way. The pressure of the bands around the knees will pull the hips into external rotation and encourage proper lumbar curvature. Flexibility and limb length will limit who will be able to get into proper position. Build into them.

I don’t illustrate it here, but hip thrusts or “glute bridges” (ala the “glute guy,” Bret Contreras) may also be done with bands fitted in this manner to good effect—the bands will serve to strongly engage the glutes and dis-inhibit the hip flexors.

One additional thing I found was that wearing the bands in this manner placed my hips and legs in a more comfortable and natural position for seiza. The bands provide traction for the lumbar, open the hips, and help create improved posture in this seated position and encourage greater awareness of the tanden (the diaphragm “power center”).

Seiza with bands

More from Jumpstretch

Joe Heiler over at Sports Rehab Expert.com just published his first quarter teleseminar schedule—what a terrific line-up! The speakers run the range from physical therapist, chiropractic doc and strength coaches, and all are at the forefront of their fields. Check this list:

Sue Falsone PT, Athletes’ Performance and LA Dodgers

Ron Hruska PT, Postural Restoration Institute

Dr. Mike Leahy DC, developer of the Active Release Technique

Thomas Myers LMT,  author of Anatomy Trains

Brian Grasso, founder of the International Youth Conditioning Association

Greg Roskopf, developer of MAT, Muscle Activation Technique

Brian Mulligan PT, developer of the Mulligan Concept, Mobilizations with Movement

Dr. Warren Hammer DC,  Graston Technique, Fascial Manipulation

Dan John, strength coach, author of Never Let Go

Gray Cook PT, developer of the FMS,  author of Movement

The lecture series kicks off Tuesday at 8pm and runs Tuesdays through March. You don’t need to watch live if your schedule’s packed; you can watch later or re-watch for a week, and the seminars are free after a simple email signup. Register here.

My part of this blog has trended toward corrective exercise strategies over the past couple of years as I began to learn chronic pain wasn’t just a part of aging and  I didn’t have to live with in decline. Many of my IronOnline forum pals have also moved off the strength path temporarily in order to reclaim lost movement, and others probably would if they knew where to start without having to go back to school to learn anatomy and kinesiology.

Often people ask for the simple solution—you know… hey, just tell me what book to get and I’ll read it. But until now, it hasn’t been that easy. In fact, that’s the reason we started collecting names for our corrective exercise specialist database, which you’ll find at this link; by the time we hit our 40s, 50s and 60s, we’re so jammed up it takes an expert to sort it all out.

The thing is, even if we can part with the bucks to pay someone to help many of us are not in driving range of such a person. The field has grown hugely the past couple of years, but the personal trainers who know more than an introduction to assessments and corrective strategies are still few and far between.

So what are you going to do? Today we actually have a viable do-it-yourself option, Keith Scott’s Unbreakable Body Program.

First, a non-disclaimer disclaimer: I get nothing for the referral, and if you click on any link you won’t find an affiliate number attached. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I decided to buy and review the program. There’s a fair number of people “selling” Keith’s new program, and if you get a few weight training newsletters and follow a few blogs, you’ve probably seen a write-up today. I thought we might have a non-referral look for ourselves, although I don’t mean to suggest the other writers have financial motives. Quite the opposite; the ideas in the program are certainly good enough to stand alone.

Plus, if it happens to offer what my buds need to get out of pain and to move better, I really wanted to know about it. I’ve come to trust Keith’s material after reading his blog, and figured there was a real good chance this and a few weeks work might be our golden ticket to a pain-free life.

Guess what? It was a good gamble! Keith holds a Master’s Degree in Exercise and Sports Science with a concentration in sports medicine, and coupled with his eighteen years in the field working with individual athletes and general population in pain, he’s put together a complete program to get us on the recovery path at home.

Read the material over the weekend, spend an hour sorting through your self-assessment tests, make notes on a tablet, couple your test results with his corrective strategy suggestions and prepare for your 16-week personalized program. 16 weeks is nothing—just knuckle down and follow instructions Put away your doubts and confusions created by too many options and take this time to get your body back in good working order.

Here’s what’s in the package. For your $77, you’ll get a downloadable winzip file with ten pdf e-reports, 374 pages, as follows:

• Intro, 40 pages
• Self-Assessment, 65 pages
• Corrective Exercises, 82 pages
• Corrective Exercise Descriptions, 76 pages
• 16-Week Strength and Fitness Program, 14 pages
• Exercise Description for the Program, 36 pages
• Soft Tissue Work for Optimal Physical Health, 27 pages
• Recovery and Regeneration, 9 pages
• Nutritional Guidelines, 15 pages
• Fat Burning with High Intensity Interval Training, 10 pages

A quick scan over that list will tell the knowledgeable reader there’s nothing outstanding here. Where it really shines is the completeness of the material. Everything in the downloads is available elsewhere; I didn’t learn anything I hadn’t seen before. The thing is, it’s all in one place. It took me about a year of blog, newsletter, book and website reading, podcasts listened to, plus a heck of a lot of trial and error, a few seminars and conferences and some hands-on help to learn all this, yet today it’s available right here in one package, for $77. Believe me, I don’t even want to think how much more I’ve paid for the same learning (nor would I tell Dave, if I even could remember).

In the intro, Keith explains how compensations work, and how an aching elbow may turn out to be a problem stemming from the hip. The very thorough assessment section (using both descriptions and photos) will help you determine your specific issues; one of the main problems with getting started on a corrective exercise program is not that people are unwilling, it’s that they don’t know where to start. This section will help you discover your biggest issues so you can tackle them first; you’ll make notes and the next section is going to tell you what to do to fix them.

By the time you’ve worked your way through the reports, you’ll understand where your key spots are, and whether they’re problems of flexibility or stability, or if you have strength imbalances one side to another. These are the factors you’ve heard about, but perhaps don’t understand, and possibly this is where you’ve jumped ship and gone back to your old standby workout programs, complete with chronic daily pain. Let Keith explain this big picture for you once and for all, whydontcha?

The corrective exercise and general workout programs are in separate booklets from their exercise-description counterparts. During the initial read, that might seem a little annoying, but once you understand how to do the exercises (described in clear bullet points with photos), you’ll be real glad you have the programs written up cleanly for easy review or printing.

The workouts take about 30 minutes, plus an extra ten for individual specifics, and you can split the correctives from the main workout if that suits your schedule better.

If you’re intrigued enough to get the material package in your shopping cart but didn’t read the miles of sales copy, you may get stumped by the $19.95 free membership comment. Since that’s what happened to me (I didn’t read more than a quarter of the sales text, probably less), I had to go back and see if I was signing up for a long-term deal. Answer: No. Unless, of course, you have such a great experience with the premium membership site that you want to continue, in which case it’ll be $19.95 next month. However, you do have to cancel—failing that, your credit card will be charged automatically.

Cut to the chase, already! My overall impression after a single day’s review and without having done the 16-week program: Both thumbs up.

In fact, to be honest, I bought the program merely to find out if this would be a place to send forum members and blog readers who ask where to learn this stuff or how to get started with corrective exercise. I’m happy I did, because not only can I recommend it, but I’m also going to start on the 16-week program on Monday.

The negatives:

That horrid sales page. Yes, I know people respond to that style; I personally would have clicked away automatically had I not gone there specifically to purchase the material for this review.

The automatic billing for future membership months. I suspect that option will be gone after the first automatic billing month. He’ll get so many complaints and have to refund so many of the automatic charges (or risk losing all credibility should he choose to stand on the fine print on the previous page), it just won’t be worth it to him. My guess… gone soon. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, you’ll have that first month prepaid access to the premium section, and with that comes Keith’s private email for questions in his Ask Keith forum. Given today is the first sales day, there are only a few questions answered, but I suspect this will be fleshed out as things settle down. If you buy the program and get stuck anywhere along the line, log in, go to the Ask Keith forum and click on the Contact the Author link to email Keith direct.

The positives all boil down to one thing: This could give you back your life. $77, a few hours of reading and 16 weeks of effort is *nothing* when compared with that aching shoulder and elbow, the pain in your low back, those hips that barely move, those rickety knees, unbendable ankles and pain in your feet. Good grief! Get with the program already: Your Unbreakable Body.

Oh, and you will have to order a foam roller if we haven’t convinced you of that by now.

April wrapped up a full year of regular Feldenkrais training, both in group classes as well as in private, hand-on sessions. Not only has the training propelled me miles ahead of where I could have gotten on my own with self-taught corrective exercises, stretching and myofascial release, but it’s also been a real eye-opener for casual movement, moving posture and even in learning.

The biggest wow moment was learning to think of the skeleton separately from muscle. When doing joint mobility, I now think of the bones moving and let the muscles move naturally, without purposeful attention. Good joint motion happens when it’s smooth and effortless.

Good movement through the joints requires the right rhythm. Muscles have to fire in optimal order to move well and freely, without pain. Yet how do you do that? How can we possibly teach our muscles how to fire in the right order? Some—many—ways to move are never learned, or are forgotten. Remember this: In movement, we’re self-taught!

In reading of corrective exercise, we learn about joint coordination, how the right hip effects the left shoulder, for example. In Feldenkrais training, especially during the Awareness Through Movement verbal classes, we feel it. That’s why I consider Feldenkrais the ultimate in joint mobility.

In this ancient 21-minute video clip, Moshe Feldenkrais demonstrates how he teaches the brain of this whiplash patient—reminding her brain—how to move the skeleton. Notice especially how easily her joints move at the end of the session as compared with the beginning.

Feldenkrais Functional Integration, the hands-on sessions, are normally done lying down, supine, on the sides or occasionally prone. Few practitioners work with a seated client; I believe that’s because the body is more relaxed when it’s not working against gravity. More relaxed means the brain will be more trainable.

Would you like to give this a try at home? There are numerous good session sets available via mp3 downloads for pay, but before you head off in that direction, here’s a link to do-it-yourself ATMs, where you can try these out for free.

A favorite instructor of mine, Larry Goldfarb, has this free mp3 lesson, Rolling Fists, on his Mind in Motion site. Along with Suzie Lundgren, the woman who’s been walking me through this remarkable year’s process, Larry is co-presenting a new 12-week session beginning May 4th for anyone in the local Santa Cruz area. Suzie also does hands-on work, which for me has been priceless.

Susie Lundgren, Feldenkrais practitioner at work in Santa Cruz

A few of the paid sessions available for download are found below.

• Larry Goldfarb, Back into Action
  
• Ryan Nagy, Eliminate Back Pain Now
• Lavinia Plonka, Unstress Through Movement, and Power of the Pelvis
• And here’s an interesting set of three lessons: Lengthen Hamstrings and Spine. The Feldenkrais method is done without stretching; amazing, and I promise you, this works.

Learning to move with the ATM lessons is powerful, but those with chronic pain will find faster relief in the hands-on Functional Integration lessons, in which the practitioner will be able to quickly zero in on the patient’s individual needs. There’s a directory of local therapists here at the Feldenkrais.com website.

Nothing has influenced me physically as much as Feldenkrais work, not even 30 years of weight training. I really can’t recommend it highly enough.

One final thought: I had a conversation with Mike Nelson via twitter the other day. He’s a Z-Health Master Trainer who’s also familiar with Feldenkrais. I asked him if he could explain the difference between the two, and his answer was they’re similar, but Eric Cobb’s Z-Health is faster to both learn and apply. This makes sense to me, because while I’ve often had jaw-dropping breakthroughs during a session, it’s taken the entire year to get fully comfortable with the work.

One of the Z-Health dvd and manual sets, perhaps the R-Phase for $85, could perhaps get most readers where they need to be with regards to athletic, pain free movement.

Chronic pain sufferers, get a Feldenkrais practitioner to put hands on you. It’ll give you back your life.

Ten years ago I realized my pains and lifetime injuries were all on my right side: right foot metatarsal pain, right heel pain, right hip, right shoulder, right elbow, right jaw. Did that mean anything, I asked my doctor, who shrugged back a who-knows response. What a disappointment to come home telling Dave my brilliant insight had come up empty.

Today, with that list of right-side problems relieved through successful mobility, flexibility and corrective exercise work, I look back and wonder how a trained medical doctor wouldn’t have known something was amiss.

Ten years is not that long, really, but consider how far we’ve come in the fitness and athletic industry. Today you could ask your doctor the same question and probably get the same shrugging response, yet if you asked a personal trainer—at least one who pursues continuing education—you’d probably get a knowing nod, and certainly you would if you asked an athletic trainer. The medical profession is focused and remarkable at curing disease, but not that good at building health and fitness.

What happened in the case above, mine, was a cascade of compensations stemming from a dysfunctional hip. In order to move around as needed, the body does whatever it takes to get the job done, creating tightness, pain and eventually injuries along the way.

According to Gray Cook and Lee Burton in The Importance of Primitive Movement Patterns,

“However, many individuals lose the ability to naturally stabilize as they age due to asymmetries, injuries, poor training or daily activities. The individuals who do this develop compensatory movements, which then create inefficiencies and asymmetries in fundamental movements.

“Compensation is a survival mechanism and your clients and athletes will opt for compensation when you neglect to identify problems with mobility and stability. In many cases it is the lack of sufficient mobility and stability that leads to dysfunction in basic movements, which then causes decreased performance or potential injury.”

Bodybuilders were the leaders of both nutrition and weight training during Dave’s era a few decades ago, a time when athletic coaches scorned weight training as muscle-binding and as athletes had set aside the beef in favor of scarfing plates of pasta.

Yet these days athletics have taken the forefront in optimizing movement quality through corrective measures, and we in the muscle-building field need to learn to be more open to the strides taken by others. Think of how great we could all feel in middle age if doctors were trained in nutrition, strength training and human movement. Those elements are so basic when compared with their intense education as to seem unimportant, and perhaps that contributes to why there isn’t more attention given to fitness in medical schools.

Regardless, fitness professionals and writers have eagerly bought into using corrective exercise to bring up asymmetrical movements, and even if you can’t find a local trainer to help, you can still make good progress on your own without learning physical anatomy.

Here’s a list of my favorite corrective exercise blogs, and here’s a good place for a beginner to tap a toe into joint mobility, an excellent first step that will help you discover your best and worst functions.

Next: Let Gray Cook walk you through elementary movement screening and teach you how to correct any weaknesses you discover. I could have saved myself ten years of low-level, chronic pain had I only trusted my intuition and tracked down these answers way back when.

Do you think I could talk you into starting the year off with a near-daily joint mobility program if I made it really simple? Just one or two easy movements per major joint will take you about five minutes; do it in the mornings and your joints will be oiled up and ready to take on the day. What a great way to start off the New Year, a resolution that’s really easy to keep and comes with a major big payoff.

As we age, our joints lose their ranges of motion, limiting our ability to move well in addition to causing other problems or pain in nearby muscles and the joints above or below. Working the joints—not the muscles, the joints—reminds the brain how to access the full range of motion while at the same time circulating the synovial fluid, removing waste products and breaking down calcium deposits. The result: confident, smooth movement in the joints, a reduction of pain and an increase in injury prevention. It’s golden, and worth the five precious minutes.

The main thing to remember is we’re working the joints. Pay attention to joint motion, keeping other areas of the body as still as possible so the joint alone can move forward and back, side to side or rotational. Whenever possible, close your eyes and get an image of the actual joint in action. Slow the action down and make the movement smaller rather than as pushing far as you can go; you’re looking for smooth, easy action, not big jerky movements.

Here we go, real simple, no frills, just do it. Five reps per move, per side — as you get comfortable with the routine, you may feel like doing a little more in areas where you feel less confident. Some people do dozens of reps with great results, but this is a beginner’s set-up where time and interest will run out fast; you’ll see a difference with only  a few reps if you perform them regularly.
Toes:
Standing tall, move one foot behind, heel raised with the pads of the toes flat on the floor. Move your heel toward the floor, and back up, keeping the toes pressed into the floor. Do this five times; now, with the heel high, put more weight on the pad of the big toe, then move the weight outward toe by toe until the weight is more heavily on the little toe. Reverse and take the weight back to the big toe. Change feet and repeat.

Ankles:
Still standing, most of your weight on one foot, roll the un-weighted foot to the inside and outside, paying attention to side-to-side movement in the ankle joint, repeating on both feet. Then, standing near a wall or countertop, put your weight evenly on both feet, feet flat on the floor, and bend toward the nearby surface, making sure the movement takes place in the ankles. You’ll be moving your ankles forward and back; your knees are slightly bent, holding that position (not increasing the bend), and there’s no movement in the hips. Your entire body moves forward and back, with the action taking place in the ankles.

Hips:
Warm up the hips from a standing position, weight equally on both feet, moving forward and back in a small hip thrust, back and forth with the movement taking place almost entirely at the hips where the top of the quads attach. Then, rest your weight on one foot, pull the other foot off the ground to the front, then cross over the front of the stance leg so your foot is turned, inside facing behind you. Begin to circle your foot, again with the circling taking place at the hip joint; your ankle is not circling or bending, nor is your knee. Circle five times and reverse directions for five more circles. Move your foot to the front of your body and repeat; move it to the outside to repeat in both directions; move it to the rear and circle it, again in both directions. You may feel pretty sloppy at this one at first—stick with it, it comes fast and is a real doozy for good hip mobility.

Thoracic spine:
Still standing, weight evenly balanced, extend your arms to the front, palms down. With your hips stable and unmoving, extend and contract your arms by moving at the mid-back. Your chest will be caving in and moving out in opposition to your thoracic spine activity. Now move your hands to your sides to perform a slight side bend. This isn’t the side bend you remember from gym class; instead you’ll be moving at the upper back, your lumbar spine and hips are immobile, with the only movement taking place between the neck and bottom of the rib cage above the low back.

Shoulder joints:
Keep standing for a few more minutes while we finish this up. Skipping over the scapulae, we’re going to target the ball-and-socket part of the shoulder joint, starting with forward to overhead raises. Next up, small circles beginning with the hands to the sides and low, moving forward and at shoulder height, then in an extended Y position, palms facing out. Do five circles in each position, reverse direction and repeat. Remember to picture the joint in action, and make the circles as small as necessary to keep the action smooth.

Wrists:
As long as you’re standing there and your arms are handy, hold them outstretched at shoulder height, palms facing down. Move your fingers toward the floor, then back up toward the ceiling with the action entirely at the wrist. Then circle the hands in both directions, again with no action at the elbows or shoulders.

Neck:
Finally, still standing, move your head back and forth with your body stable and the movement happening in the neck. Circle your head from side to side (the universal “no”), with no activity from the shoulders down. Now move your head up and down, as if indicating “yes.” As you practice this over a few days, the range of motion will increase and the crackling sounds will decrease as the small bits of calcium deposits are broken loose and dispersed.

That’s it. Print this out. Run through it a few times this week and after you get the hang of it, it should take you about five minutes, maybe seven if it starts feeling good and you get carried away. And it’ll only take a couple times for you to realize all this typing was simply to describe ways to move your joints forward and back, side to side and in circles… nothing to it, no special exercise names, just rediscovering the ranges of motion of your mobile joints.

Once you have a taste of how powerful this stuff is, you can expand on the areas that have previously given you the most trouble. There are a variety of incredibly powerful joint exercises that will literally reverse the chronic pain of a middle-age life. I’m serious, you truly can feel like a kid again, and it doesn’t take a whole lot of time, either. Persistence, maybe, but other than that, it’s not hard at all.