I never trained my brain to stay focused when reading about research. This works for me, but for those of you who work with clients and patients on health, fitness and strength issues, you don’t really get that freedom. These days, if you don’t stay aware of the latest science and can’t explain to your clients why you’re using the exercises you choose or how the news media got the latest research wrong, your clients are likely to trust you less. Unless your personality is the most contagious one in the gym, if you continue to let your eyes glaze over when science comes into play, as a personal trainer or strength coach you’re probably going to need a new retirement plan.

Jonathan Fass is working on a research lecture for us on the movementlectures.com site, and I’m sure the topic will get a mention often in future lectures. In the meantime I have a couple of suggestions for you… even as I sit here at my desk practicing audio editing techniques with no science involved at the level I work with the waveforms.

From PubMed: How to Read Health News:

Your first concern should be the research behind the news article. If an article touts a treatment or some aspect of your lifestyle that is supposed to prevent or cause a disease, but doesn’t give any information about the scientific research behind it, then treat it with a lot of caution. The same applies to research that has yet to be published.

From Bret Contreras: Evidence-Based Coaching:

Some types of articles are better than others. A meta-analysis showing strong results or a review paper citing multiple studies leading to the same conclusion would hold a lot of weight. In contrast, an in vitro study or an animal study might not. A specific study that carefully examines the topic at hand is ideal, but many times specific studies are lacking, causing us to extrapolate or piece information together, which isn’t quite as sound of a practice.

From Tim Huntley’s Scientific Research 101: Bad Science, Common Problems in Research Articles:

This problem typically occurs when the results of a study from a specific sample are extrapolated to what is believed to be a similar group.  An example would be research where a new cholesterol drug was tested on females aged 30-50.  Can we, or should we make assumptions on what the drug might do for males or 65 year old women?  Absolutely not.

From Mark Young’s How to Read Fitness Research:

Here’s a tutorial on how to get full text articles for PubMed citations, both free and for a fee.

• Bret Contreras and Chris Beardsley’s S&C Research Review
• Alan Aragon’s Nutrition and S&C Review
• James Kreiger’s Journal of Pure Power

Bret explains here:

And, of course, like me you can stick your head in the sand, because as Dr. Ferric Fang discovered, researchers doctor papers. Whatever you do, ignore mainstream headlines and double-check the wording.

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

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.

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.

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.

Although the pistol squat is a trendy, cool-looking old-time exercise, it’s not something we use with our clients and athletes at Performance U.

We don’t feel the pistol squat exercise is “bad,” nor do we feel it’s dangerous. And, we don’t get caught up arguing against pistols, nor will we try to convince anyone to stop doing them.   All we can do is share the training methodologies that make the most sense to us, along with the exercise applications we’ve found to work best for us.

That said, in our training with individuals of all levels from pro athletes to active seniors, we haven’t found the body positions and force production patterns involved in the pistol squat exercise to have as much value and functional carryover as some of the other creative, hybrid single-leg squat variations we use, which I’ve displayed in this new Secrets of Single Leg Training 2-DVD set.

You can see more about why we don’t use the pistol squat in this video:

Sure the pistol squat can make you stronger!  It’s also very challenging exercise. And, if you enjoy doing them, then great! But we’ve found other single-leg squat training optionsto be more beneficial because they more accurately match the body postures we see in sports and daily living. And they more closely replicate the force production patterns we are looking to improve with the clients and athlete we train.

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.

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

Click on the episode link to listen here
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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

Yes, we decided — that would be nice.

So we called on colleagues to record lectures on topics they’re eager to talk about. Over the course of the last months, we gathered a bunch of recordings, made transcripts and pulled these together into a collection of inexpensive downloadable audio and text files.

And you are about a week from getting a look.

We’ll open with the first 50 lectures; there are another 20 in varying stages of completion that will be rolled out a few a week until finished. At that point, our expectation is one new lecture a week… ongoing. These recordings range in duration from 15 minutes to nearly 3 hours, and span the price scale from $2.95-$20, with most of them being around $5.

With all new websites come glitches, and to offset that we’re going to roll it out slowly over our available outlets. First look will go to those on our Facebook page, so that’s where to head to get in on the ground floor.

Movementlectures.com on Facebook