Glenn Pendlay, the speaker for our 10th Annual IronOnline bash event in Kansas City October 8th & 9th (and yes, we’re filming for DVD), provided the following thoughts.

Glenn writes:
I recently answered a similar question on my forum, so, I think I will give this whole squat thing the ol’ college try.

The first assumption I will make is that we all have goals, and are looking to work upwards in terms of physical capacity to reach these goals.

Next, I would like to bring up a situation regarding shot putters that I have read. I can’t find the source, but will try to be as accurate as I can. And YES, I will eventually tie all this together!!! Seems that a shot putter’s improvement shows some correlation to his bench press strength as the bench goes from 300 to 400lbs, but little or no correlation is shown as the bench press goes from 400 to 500lbs.

This is very interesting! Seems that for a dynamic and fast athletic event like throwing a 16lb ball, a certain amount of basic strength is needed to do your best, but past that, further increases don’t seem to matter as much.

Now let me postulate the following. For any physical activity, there is a certain amount of pure brute strength needed to perform one’s best. In general, the level of strength needed goes down as the speed of the movement increases and also goes down the longer the event drags on. Yes, anyone could find a few holes in this—I am speaking in generalities here.

Let us also consider—and this might be the most important concept in this post—there is such a thing as opportunity cost. For those who have never taken economics, this means that the cost of investing your money in one instrument is the subsequent inability to invest it in other instruments. Same thing applies to your time, and… wait for it… your RECOVERY ability. Yes, you have a finite amount of recovery ability, and every single thing you do in training means that there are other things that you can’t do.

Now to tie it together. The squat is probably the best single builder of brute strength in the lower body that exists in the planet earth. But does that mean it is the best exercise for everyone, or, that increasing the squat should be the prime goal of everyone? After all, squatting probably makes demands on the body that exceed almost every other exercise out there in terms of recovery.

At this point, I am betting that if there are 100 people who read this, 99.5 of them get where I am going and I shouldn’t have to type another word. But in the interest of the other half a person who still doesn’t get it, I will tie it together.

Whatever your goal in life or sports, there is a minimum amount of basic leg strength you should have in order to be your best. For an elite-level shot putter this might be a 500lb squat. For an elite-level 94kg weight class Olympic weightlifter, this might be a 600lb squat. For a 160lb dude who likes to hike up and down mountains, this might be a 300lb squat. I am just making these numbers up, keep that in mind, but rest assured, such numbers do exist even if we can’t actually account for them.

If you don’t have whatever basic amount of strength is required to be your best at your sport, more squatting is rarely a bad idea. If you already have this adequate amount of strength? Well, remember what opportunity cost is, and how it applies to training?

Above all, remember the concept of opportunity cost. People have gotten really, really strong squatting once a week. Yes, squatting three times a week puts muscular weight on like nothing else, but is that your main goal? Is that important enough to you that you are willing to sacrifice all the other training that you now can’t do because you are squatting three times a week?

I hope this is well enough presented to make sense to everyone. If not, maybe Dan John can simplify and improve on it. He obviously writes MUCH better than I do, and I am reminded of that every time I try to communicate anything that requires more than one or two sentences.

~Glenn Pendlay

Here Dave discusses using the art of perfect practice:

Next, let’s watch Rif talk about the lats as the bridge between the upper and lower body.

Tracy introduces the concept of equal work to equal rest in kettlebell swings progressions.

Dave next tells us what to expect when luck meets opportunity.

Quick links to review the contents, perhaps to place an order:

Full set of 4 DVDs (5 discs) of the Reifkind, Whitley, Reifkind workshop, saves $20

IronTamer Dave Whitley, Lessons from the Old-Time Strongmen, Kettlebell Fundamentals: Deepening your Getup Skills, or both Whitley DVDs at a discount

Mark “Rif” Reifkind, Lats, the Super Muscles, or combined with Tracy’s Swings Progressions at a discount

Swings Queen Tracy Reifkind,  Programming the Kettlebell Swing, including 40-minute panel discussion, or combined with Rif’s at a discount

In case you missed it, here’s the link to last week’s kettlebell workshop video clips.

In the midst of the tangle, I grabbed a few video clips to upload to YouTube so you could have a look.

Here Rif discusses using the lats in pressing

Next, let’s watch Dave talk about hip mobility, especially as it pertains to the kettlebell getup.

Tracy, as you know, is the go-to gal about progressive swings training.

I have a few more clips I’ll upload for next week. The YouTube site and my cable connection seem to be at odds, and each clip is taking about six hours to upload. I’m fairly sure that’s not the norm for a five-minute video, so I’ll try again another day.

And now, after this year of babblng about it, allow me to give you the links to review the contents, perhaps to place an order:

Full set of 4 DVDs (5 discs) of the Reifkind, Whitley, Reifkind workshop, saves $20

IronTamer Dave Whitley, Lessons from the Old-Time Strongmen, Kettlebell Fundamentals: Deepening your Getup Skills, or both Whitley DVDs at a discount

Mark “Rif” Reifkind, Lats, the Super Muscles, or combined with Tracy’s Swings Progressions at a discount

Swings Queen Tracy Reifkind,  Programming the Kettlebell Swing, including 40-minute panel discussion, or combined with Rif’s at a discount

The DVDs are in stock and shipping now. And I’ll be back next week with more audio/visual sharing. [Late edit: the next set of kettlebell dvd video clips is here.]

]]> http://davedraper.com/blog/2010/08/18/mark-reifkind-dave-whitley-tracy-reifkind-workshop-dvds/feed/ http://davedraper.com/blog/2010/08/10/perform-better-long-beach-2010/ http://davedraper.com/blog/2010/08/10/perform-better-long-beach-2010/#comments Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:23:45 +0000 ldraper Consider This Product Reviews http://davedraper.com/blog/2010/08/10/perform-better-long-beach-2010/ You’ve heard what an outstanding job Perform Better does with their conferences—and after my trip to Long Beach last weekend, you can add my voice to the cheers of others. It was wonderful to spend the time tagging along with Dan, seeing old friends, meeting some new, learning and laughing. I even got to introduce him to a couple of people.

“Hi, folks, this is my friend, Dan John, you may have heard of him.”

My first opportunity to pull this off was when we bumped into Chris Poirier, the head of Perform Better, the guy behind all the goodness about to unfold. Attendees and speakers alike tell what an enjoyable guy he is, and what a good job he and his staff do creating these weekends, but what I hadn’t heard was how easy he makes it look. Big events are not easy, and it’s monumental for him to always take time to stop and talk, and be paying attention to the conversation in the midst of what must be chaos in his head. He made us welcome, even that first night when he’d probably been going 12 or 14 hours on no rest and perhaps no food.

A few minutes later, I got to run through the Coach John introduction again when John Brookfield and Ingrid Marcum walked through the glass Hyatt entryway. I hadn’t seen Ingrid since she visited us in 2002 on her way home from two weeks training with Olympic coach Jim Schmitz, and it’s been a few years since we last saw John during which he did one of his many feats of strength before a rocking Arnold Classic crowd. Over dinner, John told us of his plans to stun the Perform Better group by rolling a 20-foot bar into a ball small enough to stow in a box the size of a briefcase, which he did the next night under the WWF-quality announcing of his spur-of-the-moment MC, Martin Rooney.

Let’s stall over breakfast for a sec, because I want you to picture this as I saw it, sitting there watching Michael Boyle and Dan John meet. These guys, who’ve appreciated each other’s work from opposite sides of the country, perhaps for decades, were instantly friends, joking, with an instant bond of mission clarity. And here I sat, watching it all. I just love this stuff—enjoying the personalities more than the lecture education.

The Perform Better events are a conflict of decisions: By choosing one presenter, you’re deciding to take a pass on three others. There are a total of 13 session decisions to be made, and not a single one easy. Session number one, I stood in the middle of the hallway trying to decide between people I knew and people I wanted to know. The truth is, I stood there conflicted until Dan walked up, saw my dilemma and offered an easy choice, “Just come with me.”

So, we started the day in Josh Henkin’s lecture room, where Dan practically pulled me to the front row (heels dragging but no match for the beefy Coach John), a pattern that was to continue throughout the weekend. Amid my own misery of being in the front, there was time to feel a little bad for Josh, Dan sitting there, pen in hand, eager as a puppy. But Josh took it in stride, and the audience was never the wiser that one of his heroes was watching his every move.

Now this front row bit was interesting. Dan was so eager for information that we moved from the second row to the first when the spots opened up. Bit quirky, but endearing. And it definitely says something when a 31-year veteran teacher races to the front row.

Compare that with my norm: When I travel with Dave, we arrive late, slip in the back door and stay there… in the back… near the door. The truth is, that suits me just fine, but since I’m trying to step out just a little more, you’d have to say Dan was a good influence.

The next session was Michael’s lecture, and honestly, when you combine our friendship with his engaging speaking skills, I really didn’t mind sitting in the front.

Now this was interesting: Because I’d worked on Michael’s book, Advances in Functional Training, and since we’d discussed much of the content, his material wasn’t new to me. That left time to observe and enjoy him as a person and as a speaker, and  guess what? He’s terrific at both. I watched him and reflected on how lucky I am to be able to work with him, and then realized all that reflection was while seated next to Dan John, waiting for Gray Cook to show up. Amazing combination of talent!

But Gray was still en route, and Michael decided over breakfast that he’d sell out Gray’s book before he got there, a friendly little challenge that only the one friend knew about. I have a feeling Michael doesn’t lose many self-challenges, and  this one was no different. The debut of Gray’s new book, Movement, was over before noon, five hours before Gray arrived. Sort of sad at the time, this will be a Boyle vs Cook story they’ll poke at for years to come.

Later that evening, the keynote speaker, our old friend Thom Plummer, surprised Dan by including him as a part of his “Lessons of Success” lecture. There we were, sitting, as you know, in the front row, and onto the overhead flashes an image of Dan, hauling a rock off the cover of Never Let Go.

This was just after Thom talked about Dave’s contribution to our field, complete with enough stirring personal thoughts about Thom and Dave’s friendship and Dave’s character to have me fairly choked up. And those were followed by Thom’s discussion of both Michael and Gray, two other pillars of fitness education. I love being a fly on the wall, standing aside, while knowing I helped these guys make a contribution. It’s an extraordinary feeling, and Thom gave it to me in spades that night.

From there, another highlight: Meeting Gray. The Perform Better events include a free-beer social, and because of the flight cancellation this was Gray’s first appearance at the event. Gray and I have logged probably dozens of hours of phone time, but hadn’t met. I knew what he looked like, and that left him at the disadvantage of knowing only my voice. I got a kick out of standing nearby, making a couple of comments while knowing he had no clue who I was.

That reminds me of another intriguing contrast. Working on Dan’s book involved passing notes back and forth in a private section on our IronOnline forum. With Gray’s, we used email when it was necessary to exchange text, but did the bulk of the work by phone. Michael’s book was done entirely by email. Check this: We’d never even spoken before Friday.

The next morning, Gray, his wife Danielle, and his two daughters, Jessica and Kayla, invited me to breakfast. After breakfast, the womenfolk hiked over to the battling ropes workshop, definitely groggy and possibly intimidated knowing Ingrid had a plan for them, while Gray and I made up for the work we missed the day before.

After that, we were off to Gray’s lecture on dynamic stability training. Gray has so much insight into human movement that it just slips out between his thoughts, in writing and in conversation. So picture this: Throughout the weekend, Dan was taking notes in everyone’s lectures, big note-taker, that guy. Every few minutes I’d hear a “hmmm” or an “oh, that’s good,” as he scribbled a thought, followed by the sound of paper rustling to make way for another page.

At the opening of Gray’s first talk, Dan made a single note, then no more.

Now you know it wasn’t because there was nothing to write down. No, it was because there was so much to write down, he’d have never caught up. When you’re listening to Gray lecture, you want to stop and think about a concept, sort it out in your head, but there’s no time— you know you’re going to miss five more intense thoughts while you’re off pondering. I’d be willing to bet there were few notes taken anywhere in that standing-room-only crowd.

Gray had four contributors to his new book, one of whom is Greg Rose, a chiropractic doc who co-founded the Titleist Performance Institute. Home for the first time since mid-May, Greg is a sought-after speaker on golf mechanics, and he was next on my lecture schedule. His topic was based on the golf swing, but more than that it was a discussion of the joint-by-joint approach to movement, specifically as it relates to rotational sports. Because Dan’s a thrower—primarily a rotational athlete—I was disappointed to find Dan’s unattended notepad there next to me in the front row, Dan having been waylaid in the hall on his way back from the water fountain.

The upside there was that I got to sneak over to the sideline to sprawl on the floor, unnoticed.

Getting the spine flat for a bit was a welcome relief, because our next stop was Gray’s hands-on lecture. It’s no stretch to say there wasn’t a person in the room thinking there’s never enough time to listen to Gray and to test his techniques. Subtle tips, a fraction of an angle or a turn of the head, these all make up a fascinating difference you can feel. The trainers, coaches and medical pros all left that room with at least a couple techniques to use this week, and a few others to experiment with as they learn the nuances.

The event vendors lined the edge of the presentation room, and as Gray finished, Dan and I hurried over to visit with Anthony Carey, the creator of that fabulous CoreTex I fell off during last year’s IDEA expo. This year, no fall, nor even a close call; even Anthony, whose swift move last year stopped me from knocking over a nearby apparel display, would have to say I’d made a bit of stability progress. I’m going to have to spring for one of these things—it’s truly a blast, fun and effective at the same time.

By this time, we’re coming to the end of our trip, but not before we get a half-hour of personal attention from Gray. In the dim light of a secluded hallway, Dan and I took turns rolling around the crummy convention hall carpet as Gray pushed and pulled on bodyparts to offer a few corrective suggestions. Beyond doubt, I’d have gone to Long Beach for those few minutes, just that alone.

Sadly, Summit attendees miss as many great speakers as they see, in fact, more than two times as many! I missed a couple of good friends talk, and missed a few stellar educators. Lee Burton, another of Gray’s co-authors, arrived at LAX the same hour as we flew home, and I missed Sue Falsone talk about the thoracic spine, surely the biggest problem area in this 54-year-old body. But, hey, this is why Perform Better schedules three such weekends each year in addition to their one-day events.

Next stop:  the San Jose airport, where in a bit of a tsunami I tried to tell Dave this story over a span of about five minutes.

Amazing from start to finish, the three Es— educating, entertaining, and finally… exhausting.

It’s funny, because years ago a young man told me, “Squats hurt my knees.” I asked him to demonstrate his squat. He did and I said, “Squats don’t hurt your knees; whatever you are doing there hurts your knees.” I told Breon, “Swings don’t hurt your back; whatever the hell you are doing hurts your back.”

Ah. Great coaching again! I knew something was wrong and stated the obvious. Breon then asked the million-dollar question: Well, then, what am I doing wrong?

Thank you, Breon. You see, I could SEE the problem, but I had no ability to fix it. Oh, I knew drills and we could have pushed, pulled and prodded her to a better movement, but I knew that I knew that I didn’t know what to do. Like that famous exchange in Mystery Men, and, yes, I think it is the greatest film of all time:

Capt. Amazing: I knew you couldn’t change.
Casanova Frankenstein: I knew you’d know that.
Capt. Amazing: Oh, I know that. AND I knew you’d know I’d know you knew.
Casanova Frankenstein: But I didn’t. I only knew that you’d know that I knew. Did you know THAT?
Capt. Amazing: Of course.

So, I knew Breon was swinging wrong. But I didn’t know much else. For a few minutes, we waved our hands around, did some drills and actually fixed her swing. But, I still didn’t know something. Did you know THAT?

She was bending her knees too much, which let the ‘bell go too low, which tossed all the forces on her lower back. It is sometimes called the “Squatting Swing.”

When I said that out loud, my little world of lifting had absolute clarity. You see:

The Swing is not a Squat.
The Squat is not a Swing.

To which, you may reply: So? It is the greatest insight of my teaching career. We went to a white board and began talking about this notion. It soon became known as the Hip Displacement Continuum. Within a few minutes, I posted this first tickler on the idea at my forum at davedraper.com. The picture comes from a later discussion when I decided the SWING is the king of the hip moves… live with it!

Breon and Josh Vert asked a good question and I already called Mark Twight, but somebody else will claim it later…

Breon was taught to do Swings from a “deep squat” and “you are cheating if you don’t deep squat.” Well, no…

Put this on a “rainbow” curve or continuum.

On the far left:
Vertical Jump
Standing Long Jump
Swings (all variations)
Romanian Deadlifts
(Tackling in football would go here)

In the Middle:

Bootstrapper Squat
In a narrow beam: snatches and cleans and DLs
Back Squats
Front Squats
Overhead Squats

On the far right:
Goblet Squats

The most powerful movements the human body can achieve are from this swing position or, as it has been called more recently, the hinge movement. If you are walking and a rattlesnake crosses your path, that “leap” away will be more on the left side of the continuum. If you first wish to kiss the rattler, that movement would be a squat. You decide, as I have no question about what I would do.

Bad jumpers start with a lot of knee bend and diminish the pop of the hinging hips. Bad squatters bend their knees a lot and ignore the hip movement. The continuum clarified this thinking for me. Forever. It is one of the few times that some mental effort can actually improve physical performance.

As a test, we added a series of Standing Long Jump tests. First, we encouraged the athlete to use a lot of knee bend, really use your legs, and tested three jumps. Then, we asked for nearly no knee bend, but a snappy hip movement. Most athletes are within three inches of their best with this style and many athletes actually do better. Finally, allowing some additional knee bend but emphasizing the explosive hip, the athlete takes a few more attempts. It is more common than not to reach personal records here.

Pavel recently added much to this concept at the HKC presentation in St. Paul.  “Hinge” movements, like the swing, are movements with deep hip movement and minimal knee bend. Squat movements have both deep movements in the hip and the knee.

So, to memorize:

Hinge the Hips (Swings, Jumps): Deep Hip Movement, Minimal Knee Movement
Squats: Deep Hip Movement, Deep Knee Movement

As you move across the continuum, you might note that the knee bends more and more, but never “NEVER.” There always needs to be a slight bend in the knees during any movement. Pavel calls the stiff-legged swing The Tipping Bird,  like those old bar standards where the plastic bird swings back and forth into a drink. One of the great errors of beginning squatters is to lock the knees out at the start or top of the movement. No need to jack up your knees for life, my friend: Keep a slight bend.

It is interesting to think about the popularity of leg extension and leg curl machines in the Seventies and Eighties. These are movements with technically no hip movement and deep knee movements, but there has been some research indicating that these movements are terrible for the knees. Mother Nature seems to know best when it comes to training.

When someone complains that swings hurt the back, it is often because the movement was turned into a Squatting Swing. Always keep the bell above the knees, “attack the zipper,”  hinge the hips, make the hips fold… or whatever clue is going to help you. When someone complains squats hurt the knees, take a moment to clue the hips.

Once you understand the Hip Movement Continuum, teaching the body to move powerfully becomes much simpler, safer and sounder.

For more from Dan, you can catch up with him in his Q&A forum, sign up for site updates on his blog, or order his book and dvds. 

This past year, I’ve stuck to my traditional routine of constantly bombarding myself with new information.  It just so happens that I’ve gotten a chance to review Dan John’s new book Never Let Go, as well as his 4-disc DVD series. As a result, I came to a fairly major conclusion:  Dan John is smart. I’m definitely not the brightest bulb in the bunch, but I can say this with a fair amount of certainty.

While I’ve taken away a ton of nuggets from Dan over the past 8-10 years, here are four of my favorite tips from the man himself. I’ll do my best not to mangle his words!

#1—Goblet Squats are Sweet

I remember first hearing about goblet squats several years ago, when Dan gave his infamous squatting presentation at the LA Sports Performance and Nutrition Seminar in Los Angeles.

He rambled on and on about how important goblet squats were, how they could teach how to squat safely and effectively, blah, blah, blah. At the time doing in-home one-on-one training, there was plenty of time for me to teach people how to squat.  Who needs another tool?

When we opened our gym, Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training, I started training in small group settings again. These weren’t one-on-ones anymore; I had groups of two to four people at a time to supervise.  Along those same lines, there were often up to ten other people training on their own in the gym.

Those goblet squat things I totally ignored a while back? All of a sudden they became an integral part of my programming.

Not only do goblet squats teach how to squat properly, they do so with a minimal amount of coaching effort.  A few quick cues and the clients are off and running. So yeah, those goblet squat thingies work pretty well.

Well played, Danny, well played.

#2—Reflexive Core Training is the Real Deal

I’ve been turned on to offset loading for years, but it wasn’t until hearing about it from guys like Dan John and Stuart McGill that I considered making it a bigger part of my programming.

The basic principle here is this:  If you don’t have to coach or cue someone into the right position, if you can “trick” them into doing what you want, that’s a powerful exercise.  I like to call it reflexive training.

We know  goblet squats teach how to keep the chest up and out, open up the groin, and squat between the legs.

Waiter’s walks and offset farmers walks cue to stay tall and activate the core, all without having to think about it.  The action is reflexive in nature: Hold a weight on one side of the body and the body has this weird tendency to turn on the opposite side of the core to stay upright.
This single Dan John concept has revolutionized our training at IFAST.  Beyond waiters walks and farmers carries, we’ve extended offset loading and “reflexive” core training to bilateral lifts, unilateral training, and just about everything between.  If you take a second to review my Single-Leg Solution training package, you’ll see reflexive/offset training is a huge component of how we do things.

#3—Attack the Zipper on Your Kettlebell Swings

One of the biggest issues we see with new clients who perform kettlebell swings is the inability, or unwillingness, to “tame the arc.”  Instead of keeping the kettlebelll tight to the body, especially in the bottom of the lift, they’ll have a tendency to get loose.

Attacking the zipper may be one of the single best cues in our coaching arsenal.  After a quick description of how the lift should look, I simply tell my clients to “attack their zipper” —not only actively pulling the kettlebell down, but pulling it directly at the crotch.

The result? Their swings are tighter, more explosive, and balance is improved immeasurably.

#4—Punch and Crunch Your Way to Turkish Get-up Success

“Punch and crunch” is to the Turkish get-up just as “attack the zipper” is to the swing.

Time and again, the most challenging portion of the Turkish get-up is the start.  There are many different cues to get people to do this properly—lead with the chest, lengthen the straight leg, drive with the down heel… And while all of those are great, coaching is often defined by how few words you can use versus how many.

Punch and crunch effectively describes exactly what we want people to do.  The moment people hear this cue, the light bulbs turn on and get-ups immediately look better.

Summary

Dan John is the man.  He’s quickly become one of my strongest coaching influences in the strength and conditioning world. Don’t be an idiot like me – listen to what Dan says and apply it immediately.  The guy knows a thing or two about training.

I don’t have the writing skills to even begin to tell of the insights I’ve gained while working closely with Gray these past months. Prolific in writing, he’s not, er… all that great at email, so most of our interactions are by phone. Gray’s this brilliant guy from whom those gems of how the body works just flow during a conversation. Plenty often, I’ve had to make him stop talking to give me a chance to sort out a thought lingering from two sentences before.

And that’s what will happen to you as you read his new book—nearly every page has a buried nugget that you’ll have to stop reading to ponder, insights you’ll be thinking about for the rest of the day. Still, you probably want to know about the structure of the book, after all this talk, what’s it really about anyway? I spent a day distilling the content into a couple of sentences per chapter to help you decide if this is the right book for you.

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.”

by Gray Cook
Excerpted from
Movement: Functional Movement Systems—Screening, Assessment and Corrective Strategies

If you did not yet see the first two parts, click here to start at the beginning.

Ribs, vertebrae and lots of muscle and fascia crisscrossing the front and back of the thorax cause thoracic stiffness. We don’t inherently have a lot of mobility there, but we need all we can get. However, stiffness isn’t just something we need to get rid of. Stiffness is there for a reason. Biological mechanisms that move very well in childhood will develop stiffness following an injury or following repetitive bad mechanics over time. If the body doesn’t stabilize correctly, it will figure out another way to get stability: it’s called stiffness.

If you find tight hamstrings or a tight T-spine and you just hit the foam roller, you may change mobility, but you will see the stiffness return the following day. Mobility efforts without reinstalling stability somewhere else simply don’t last. Those hamstrings were tight for a reason. That T-spine is stiff for a reason.

If you don’t also backfill some of that new motion with reflex muscular integrity and motor control, you’re going to have a problem. Usually we see tight hamstrings on people who don’t extend their hips well. They don’t use their glutes well, and so the poor hamstrings get double-time. The hamstrings get too much use, and they fatigue—a fatigued muscle and a tight muscle look very much the same. It’s all just protection.

Most T-spine mobility problems occur in people who also don’t have full range-­of­-motion core stability and strength. We may see a tight T-spine on a person who can side plank or front plank for an hour, but who don’t have great core stability through a full shoulder turn in the golf swing. This may be a stiffness developed as a protection. As we get up in the thoracic spine, we’d like to have mobility.

In the scapulothoracic complex, there is only one boney connection of the scapula to the entire axial skeleton (rib cage or vertebra) and that’s at the sternoclavicular (SC) joint. This is where the top end of the collar bone and sternum meet. The acromioclavicular (AC) joint and the SC joint are at each end of the collarbone connecting the shoulder girdle to the rest of the body. But that poor scapula is floating on the rib cage, held in place mostly by muscles and by two joints that aren’t much bigger than the joints in the index finger.

That scapulothoracic area needs stability. Does that mean we don’t have to get rid of some trigger points in the upper trap first? No. But often that scapula is stuck in the wrong position. We think it’s stable, but instead it’s just not mobile. It doesn’t mean it’s stable where it ought to be. Sometimes we loosen that scapula up to make it more stable. We foam roll the upper back, do a little bit of stretching of the teres major, stick a little ball in the armpit, stretch that out, and reset the scapula. Then we train it for authentic stability, but only when mobility is acceptable.

Once again, we see tight traps, and we think the last thing we need to do to those shoulders is add stability, thinking instead we need to do mobility work. Maybe you get the scapula back where it belongs, but if you want to see if it’s stable, watch the person deadlift and see if the exact same scapular position can be maintained throughout a deadlift. No? Then the individual has no stability. The deadlift represents distraction, and plank and pushups represent compression. The stable shoulder must be able to manage both situations.

At the glenohumeral joint we look for mobility. But certainly you can think of a person who dislocated a shoulder. Once you see the dislocation, you may think everybody needs to stabilize their glenohumeral joint, but if you actually go around and measure glenohumeral range of motion, you might start to feel different.

In past shoulder training, we’d work on the rotator cuff and try to strengthen it. Then we got better and realized the shoulder needed a stable base. That base was the scapula.

How can you make the scapula stable if the T-spine is stiff? The scapula may be moving around in-correctly or too much when the shoulders don’t turn right. I’ve seen many golfers try this. They don’t have T-spine mobility for rotation, so to get a good shoulder turn on a golf swing, they protract one shoulder, retract the other, and it looks like they’re turning their spines. They’re not. They’re just destabilizing both shoulders and in doing so, they’re really losing a lot of good contact and connection with the ­lub.

We can take this a few steps further. Past the glenohumeral joint, we were back on the T-spine, we go up into the mid-neck, the vertebrae from maybe seven up to two. Most people need more stability there. They need their curve back, and they need good stability.

Most people in the computer age, in the driving age, are stiff in their suboccipital region, the joints between the base of the skull and C-2. That’s why so many people with their teeth together can barely touch the chin to the chest or do 45 degrees of rotation without using the rest of the neck. They’re very tight in the suboccipital region from many bad posture habits and from tension. They overuse the middle components of the neck, which are usually where we see degenerative changes.

Where do we see degenerative changes in the spine most? In the mid-neck and in the low back, areas that need to be more stable. Once these areas are degenerated, they become stiff, Many people don’t understand that the stiffness is the body’s attempt to stop the sloppiness.

We usually see quite a bit of degeneration in the knees. That doesn’t mean we don’t have it in the hips and ankles, but in the knees it just seems to be compounded. These are areas that could probably use better stability, and better alignment, better ­everything.

We can follow this out into the elbow and hands, but it gets complicated there because we’ve got injuries to consider. The elbow is more than just one joint, too; there are a lot of things going on there. When we get into the hands and all the manipulative things people do, one of the first things I always do is look for full wrist extension and flexion. Without that, the other mechanics all the way up the chain are compromised: elbow, shoulder, scapula, T-spine and neck.

In our Secrets of the Shoulder DVD, Brett Jones and I discussed all the neurons in the brain dedicated to the hand. These exceed all the neurons dedicated to the entire arm, scapula, and even the same-side leg.

There is a large amount of brain area dedicated to the effective management of the hand. When there are restrictions, compensations and problems in the hand, a person will nearly contort the whole body to accommodate it.

Because sensory information is so important, because foot information is so important, because hand information is so important, a person will sacrifice other parts of the body. This is to make sure to get a good perspective with grip, with stride and step, and the way the foot connects, and with the way vision interacts.

The whole purpose of the joint-by-joint concept is to realize generalities. It’s a mobility stacked on a stability, stacked on mobility. The examples are there to make you think above and below the area you’re working on and in the things you’re asking for. That’s why, in a strange sense, the joint-by-joint is simply another way to make people appreciate whole movement patterns outside of the movement screen.

Once you get it, if you decide to go on through the rest of your life without using movement screen, it won’t bother me a bit. It’s simply a tool. Once you get the perspective, that’s fine. What happens, though, is this tool sets a great baseline and sometimes protects us from our subjectivity. A doc can get really good at calling fractures, but we still appreciate him shooting the X-ray.

It’s very easy without an X-ray to get about 85-percent accuracy on a fracture, and anyone who’s done sports medicine for a long time gets a sense of  a sprain or a fracture in a joint. But, you’d always want to have that X-ray.

I have a pretty good perspective on how a person moves, but I want to revisit the baseline because if I improve the movement in some way, I don’t just want my subjective information to say that. I want to know I followed a joint-by-joint perspective, and have something to show for it.

We often see somebody focus on core stability. They hammer the side plank, they hammer another core exercise. The core stability is better, and I won’t argue that. But now you’ve jacked up the upper trapezius, threw the neck out of alignment, and the hip basically doesn’t move any better than it did before the side plank. The side plank fired the core, didn’t fix the hip, and jacked up the shoulder and the neck.

That’s what? One step forward, two steps back? That’s the problem we get into with the Kinesiology 101 approach. We find a movement error and we want to fix it. We map the major movers in that area. We exercise them concentrically, and think we did something. We didn’t.

Honestly, we leave so much on the table in rehab, we can’t throw stones at anyone in strength conditioning. The number one risk factor for a future injury is a previous injury. That pretty much means there are a lot of chiropractors, physical therapists and athletic trainers discharging people, or giving them a clean bill of health when patients say they feel fine. That’s great, I am glad they feel fine.

If the doctor releases an NFL player to play, the strength coach might agree that the medical problem is resolved. However, being well and being ready to play in the NFL are two different things. The movement screen and other functional testing demonstrate risk factors, and the best strength coaches watch these risk factors constantly. The guy might have an asymmetrical lunge. He’s pain-free; nobody’s arguing that. But we as clinicians in the musculoskeletal fields discharge people feeling fine, but who are still moving poorly. We send them back to their personal trainers, back to their strength coaches, back to their yoga instructors.

Now we’ve got an entire fitness industry trying to deal with issues that should have either been cleaned up in the rehab situation or at least forecasted, meaning clinicians need to be ready to have another conversation.

“Insurance isn’t going to pay me to treat you anymore, you’ve got no back pain and you feel fine, but you don’t squat well. When you lunge on the left side, it looks great. When you lunge on the right side is very unstable. I want to get you hooked up with a trainer who gets it, but here’s the deal.

“You’ve got to get your lunge patterns symmetrical and get your squat pattern back. I know you want to lose weight and get back in the gym but you need to move well before you move more. I know you want to get fit again. I know you want to play golf in the spring. These are the fastest ways to get you there.”

That’s what I talk about in our movement training workshops when to get people working together. The top risk factor for an injury is a previous injury. That is an insult to anybody who’s treating injuries, because it means we leave risk factors on the table. It does not mean we need to fix all these problems, but we can use our professional network to give our patients options.

When we peel the onion, guess what we find these risk factors are? It isn’t strength. It isn’t even flexibility. It’s left-right asymmetries. Not mobility asymmetries or stability asymmetries—movement asymmetries.

Break these down. Figure out what’s causing them: dorsiflexion restriction, poor spine mechanics, whatever. Fix it, but recheck the movement pattern. If the movement pattern didn’t change, you think you fixed it, but you didn’t. Keep working, keep tweaking it. When the movement pattern changes, you’ve done your job.

Motor ­control

Motor control is the ability to balance and move through space and range of motion. People call it stability; we’re going to call it motor control. It’s not strength. It’s just can you balance on one foot? Can you control a deep squat? Can you lunge narrow without losing your balance?

Asymmetries and motor control are the two underlying things that aren’t addressed in rehabilitation. I want the entire fitness and conditioning community to learn from the mistakes we make. Just because a person feels fine doesn’t mean he or she is not at risk for an injury, and it doesn’t mean the person is not going to butcher the great exercise program you designed. It’s not because it’s a bad exercise program. Your clients are going to try to move around things because they can’t move through the things.

Joint-by-joint is an excellent template to get you past that entry-level thinking that Kinesiology 101 is going to save the day. It makes you consider joints above and below, but if you really want another way to check yourself, look at the whole patterns of movement.

Movement, once we get through the mechanics, is still a behavioral entity that largely goes unaddressed. Really, when we train people and we’re working on functional training, we’re working on conditioning, training or changing movement behavior. To take joint-by-joint a little bit deeper, don’t only focus on the segment in which you think you found a problem.

Realize this: Until you clear everything above or below, it cannot be a singular problem.

This was part three, excerpted from Appendix 2 of Gray’s new book, Movement.

by Gray Cook
Excerpted from
Movement: Functional Movement Systems—Screening, Assessment and Corrective Strategies

If you did not yet see part one, click here to start at the beginning.

Reviewing the Joints

I often start at the discussion at the foot, where I defer to Todd Wright and Gary Gray. They have great perspective and discussion with respect to the foot. People have always tried to pull me into a top-down or bottom-­up argument, but I’m not committed either way. Problems can come from either place and be corrected by either approach. The real question is what do you see.

Here is an example.

Let’s say we do the movement screen and we learn that the active straight-leg raise, shoulder mobility, pushup and rotary stability patterns are great, but in standing, the squat, hurdle steps and lunges are bad. You need to consider the foot. This is because everything was going great until you asked the foot to contribute. It does not imply a foot problem; it simply suggests that perceptions and behaviors are com-promised when the foot hits the ground.

Here’s what I want people to know: The brain and its information pathways work two ways. We’re not just sending information down the spinal cord out to the hands and feet. We’re also uptaking information through the hands and feet.

If the feet are sloppy and the grip is off, not only will the person not activate the right muscles, but he or she is not even up taking the right sensory information. Let me say that again. If there are any mobility or stability compromises between the foot and the brain, it’s like standing on two garden hoses wondering where all the water is. The information pathway is broken two ways… up and down.

The foot is no longer a sensory organ because any information that foot could collect in its normal alignment has to be compromised. The foot has to pronate even more because of a stiff ankle, or maybe the foot has to fire too much throughout the plantar flexors because of a sloppy knee.

The other reason we’ve got to clean up these issue is it’s not just motor pathway down; it’s sensory pathway up. The foot will keep flattening out to grab as much sensation as possible because the brain knows there is a problem. It’s hoping more information will help. If you’ve got bad shoulder positioning in a push or pull movement, you’re going to do things with your grip that aren’t as authentic as they could be.

Let’s look back at the foot. The foot needs to be mobile, but it’s inherently set up to be mobile. Look how many bones, how many joints are in the foot. There’s movement all over the place unless there’s arthritis. The muscular role in that foot should be that of stability, and that’s why we have all those intrinsic muscles. These are muscles that dwell within the foot, within the arch of the foot.

Then we get to the ankle. It’s a bony, stable joint. You’re never going to see many people over-dorsiflex or over-plantar flex. But since people know of inversion or eversion sprains or strain, they think the ankle must be trained for stability.

Most of the time, the patient with the rolled ankle will also have restricted dorsiflexion, unless the person stepped on a foot or had a contact injury. There’s a huge prevalence of restricted dorsiflexion in people who present with knee problems, whether MCL or ACL.

When a client can squat to parallel, we often leave that last 10 degrees of dorsiflexion on the table, thinking it’s no big deal. We want the foot to be stable, but that doesn’t mean the foot has to be stiff. We want a mobile foot to be instantaneously stable at contact and push-off, but also to be relaxed enough to accommodate great range of motion.

The foot has to be adaptable, but it also has to be instantaneously stable. The ankle has to have freedom of movement. You can’t have ankle restrictions. The ankle also has to be stable, but one of the major problems we see is lack of dorsiflexion. Is it our footwear? Is it the way we train? It’s all that. The muscles attaching around the ankle have great leverage and strength, but the mobility provides the best overall function to utilize the potential strength and power in the ankle.

We need that inherent reflex stability in the foot. We need to have a clear ankle when it comes to plantar flexion and dorsiflexion.

Knees are simple hinge joints. They’re supposed to flex and extend, and when they rotate too much or move valgus or varus too much, we start seeing problems with the knee. Does the knee need to be mobile? Yes, but once it’s mobile, it needs to be stable enough to stay inside the proper plane of movement where its functional attributes are possible and practical.

The rotating joints are the ankle and hip. The ankle doesn’t just hinge, and the hip doesn’t just move in one plane. The knee is more of a hinge joint. What we want to see at the knee is once we have the mobility, we need stability.

What are the common problems we see at the hip? Can we see a sloppy hip? Can we see a dislocating hip? Absolutely. But in general, we see a lot more hips that don’t have the full authentic mobility.

• Common problems in the foot: People give up their stability.
• Common problems in the ankle: People give up their mobility.
• Common problems in the knee: People give up their stability.
• Common problems in the hip: People give up their mobility.
• Now we’re at the low back: People give up their stability.

So once again, these aren’t the 10 Commandments, but they’re common tendencies when injury, poor training, unilateral dominance, one-dimensional training, a lack of training or an excess of training occur. These are common defaults the body will go to; they’re not absolutes.

Click here for part three of this three-parter excerpted from Appendix 2 of Gray’s new book, Movement. In it, he continues his discussion of the joint segments and discusses how he clears the larger joint regions.

by Gray Cook
Excerpted from
Movement: Functional Movement Systems—Screening, Assessment and Corrective Strategies

The original conversation between Mike Boyle and I regarding the joint-by-joint approach to training was more about the thought process than about physiological facts and absolutes. This has been the topic of lots of discussion, but here is the pearl: Our modern bodies have started developing tendencies. Those of us who are sedentary, as well as those of us who are active, seem to migrate to a group of similar mobility and stability problems. Of course you will find exceptions, but the more you work in exercise and rehabilitation, the more you will see these common tendencies, patterns and problems.

A quick summary looks goes like this—

1. The foot has a tendency toward sloppiness and therefore could benefit from greater amounts of stability and motor control. We can blame poor footwear, weak feet and exercises that neglect the foot, but the point is that the majority of our feet could be more stable.
2. The ankle has a tendency toward stiffness and therefore could benefit from greater amounts of mobility and flexibility. This is particularly evident in the common tendency toward dorsiflexion limitation.
3. The knee has a tendency toward sloppiness and therefore could benefit from greater amounts of stability and motor control. This tendency usually predates knee injuries and degeneration that actually make it become stiff.
4. The hip has a tendency toward stiffness and therefore could benefit from greater amounts of mobility and flexibility. This is particularly evident on range-­of-­motion testing for extension, medial and lateral rotation.
5. The lumbar and sacral region has a tendency toward sloppiness and therefore could benefit from greater amounts of stability and motor control. This region sits at the crossroads of mechanical stress, and lack of motor control is often replaced with generalized stiffness as a survival strategy.
6. The thoracic region has a tendency toward stiffness and therefore could benefit from greater amounts of mobility and flexibility. The architecture of this region is designed for support, but poor postural habits can promote stiffness.
7. The middle and lower cervical regions have a tendency toward sloppiness and therefore could benefit from greater amounts of stability and motor control.
8. The upper cervical region has a tendency toward stiffness and therefore could benefit from greater amounts of mobility and flexibility.
9. The shoulder scapular region has a tendency toward sloppiness and therefore could benefit from greater amounts of stability and motor control. Scapular substitution represents this problem and is a common theme in shoulder rehabilitation.
10. The shoulder joint has a tendency toward stiffness and therefore could benefit from greater amounts of mobility and flexibility.

Note how stiffness and sloppiness alternate. Of course, trauma and structural problems can break the cycle, but it is a present and observable phenomenon producing many common movement pattern problems. It also represents the rule in orthopedics evaluation of always assessing joints above and below a problem region. It would be illogical to expect to improve knee stability in the presence of ankle and hip mobility restrictions. Likewise, it would be impractical to assume that a recent improvement in hip mobility would not return to stiffness if improved stability were not also created in the lumbar and knee regions. Chronic sloppiness would always be more convenient to use than new mobility.

When Mike and I first discussed this layering of opposites, he did a great job of developing the topic to discuss a more comprehensive approach to exercise program ­design.

The point in the joint-by-joint approach is not so much the 10 Commandments of Mobility and Stability: Make the ankle mobile. Make the knee stable. Make the hip mobile. Make the low back stable. We’ll find a person every now and then whose ankle has too much mobility or who’s sloppy in the hip. We use the words mobility or stability to implicate a segment of the body that should be moving better or have more control. The whole point is to practice with a systemic approach to clear the joints above and below the one with the problem.

I was interviewed on this topic after it became popular, and many of my comments regarding the joint-by-joint discussion have been transcribed for you ­here.
When we talk about the ankle, we’re talking about the ankle joint, the inverters, the everters, the dorsiflexors, the plantar flexors and all of the other stabilizers that control that ankle. We’re not just talking about a joint—we’re talking about a complex. Same thing with the knee; same thing with the hip; same thing with the back, the T­spine, and so on up the ­chain.

When you’re about to do knee stability training or lumbar stabilization and you take the classic kinesiology approach of training all the muscles around the knee or all the muscles around the core, you’re going to make a mistake nine times out of ten. You’re assuming when you train the knee that the ankle and hip are contributing like they should, as much as they should. That’s hardly ever the case.

It’s the same is true with lumbar stability. Some of the people producing lumbar stability research today are very well intentioned about the muscles they want us to fire and the muscles on which they want us to focus our exercises. I don’t have a problem with stability research or stability suggestions. All I ask is that the authors use a qualifying statement in front of their core stabilization talks: These statements about stability have been made assuming that you know how to clear the hips and clear the ­T-­spine and other regions where mobility will actually compromise stability. These regions should be considered as potential reasons for loss of stability and compensation behavior.

Logically we must make sure these areas are mobile, because if the hips and T-spine aren’t mobile, the lumbar stability we create is synthetic. It is not real. We develop enough stability and strength to do a side plank, but we don’t authentically stabilize in natural environments. The central point of the joint-by-joint discussion is to assure we’re working on what we think we’re working on. Most of us make the mistake by assuming sloppy knee, stiff ankle, stiff T-spine without considering the potential problems above and ­below.

What would be a reason for the T-spine to become stiff? Probably there’s a lack of stability somewhere else. Often if you don’t have the necessary core stability, the T-spine will get stiff and this also works in reverse. If the T-spine is too stiff, the core stability will be compromised. It can work either way. It’s not about finding what came first, the chicken or the egg—you have to catch both or you can’t manage either.

The takeaway from a joint-by­joint discussion is this: Instead of trying to memorize how everything is supposed to be in a perfect world, ask yourself these questions—

• I’m getting ready to train mobility or stability in this segment.
• I either want this segment to move better or I want this segment to be more stable.
• Have I truly cleared the joints above and below that can compound the problem?

Click here for part two of this three-parter excerpted from Appendix 2 of Gray’s new book, Movement. In that segment, he begins to expand on the joint segments and discusses how he clears the larger joint regions.