We need to create an understanding and an active dialog between the professions. Our team does not advocate, not for a second, that any of us work outside of our particular specialties. This is merely a call to understand how to interact and communicate with others in or around the profession. A true paradigm shift requires better communication and new semantics may be required. I think any good strength coach would tell you if somebody’s at a 2, I’m going to try to create the biggest buffer I can. I know what’s going to happen over a competitive season. It’s a war of attrition. We expect them to move. For 1s, don’t load the pattern. Make a valid attempt to try to correct the pattern before you load it. If you fix the 1, you may stabilize an asymmetry or at least move it into a safe range. If you make the 1 go away, you’re there. We look at athletes all the time who have left-right asymmetries. You give me a discus thrower, a javelin thrower or somebody who makes four left turns really fast, they’re going to have asymmetries.

I’m not saying the movement screen is beyond criticism, but a lot of the criticism has been from the assumption that a 3 is better than a 2. It’s not. It’s not at all. It only works one way. It works from the bottom. It doesn’t work from the top. When your eyes go across a FMS score sheet— 0s. The next thing you’re looking for are 1s. While excessive tightness, or weakness in the body is certainly not good, research shows that functional asymmetries between the right and left sides of the body are a much higher risk factor for injury. Co-Owner Functionalmovement.com Developers of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) Consulting and Educational Services Cook’s team realized that pain can dictate and alter movement behavior, both as a subconscious messenger and as a conscious thought switch. Thus, the specialist notes, “we must take pain off the table and never answer questions about exercise or therapy without a complete evaluation as to the source, area and associated dysfunctions. This will allow us to perform a risk factor assessment to demonstrate all the things that the patient or athlete could do better in their self-care, when it comes to facilitating the rehabilitation process and eliminating the risk of future relapse that obviously exists at this stage.” Exercises

Remember that muscles do what they are told. If they are doing something you don’t like, tell them to do it differently: communicate to the muscle through repetition of posture and movement. The number one risk factor for musculoskeletal injury is a previous injury, implying that our rehabilitation process is missing something. If one of the movements is dysfunctional, we can continue assessing other related movements before worrying about the component parts. The underlying issue may not be a problem of a part being tight, or weak, but an underlying neurological (i.e. motor control) issue. 3) First move well, then move often But, how many are going to blowout their knee so badly they never get to interact with sports again? Why aren’t we screening movement? How many will roll an ankle and return to sport before rehab goals are met.

Your soft core (diaphragm, multifidi, pelvic floor, and transverse abdominus) needs to hold everything together. It makes up about 20% of your core activity. Great athletes make difficult moves look effortless with a combination of skill, strength, and balance. Traditional conditioning builds a fitness base, but modern sports training takes into account athletic movement patterns. The Athletic Body in Balance book and DVD first of its kind to show you how to train for smooth, fluid movement and prevent muscle imbalances, mobility restrictions, stability problems, and injuries. Some of the fittest people in the world don’t obsess about their exercise time slot—they don’t require loud music or mirrors to motivate them. They simply practice movement skills, knowing they will never master them. They use exercise correctly and they stay in touch with movement. Exercise correctness is not a popular topic, but is a much needed perspective. Whenever possible, we must separate movement dysfunction from fitness and performance. Aggressive physical training cannot change fundamental mobility and stability problems at an effective rate without also introducing a degree of compensation and increased risk of injury… false, obviously; consider the little old lady who leg presses until she’s strong enough to squat the empty bar. Got yer max delta right here, buddy.This book is not simply about the anatomy of moving structures. Rather, it serves a broader purpose to help the reader understand authentic human movement, and how the brain and body create and learn movement patterns. Our modern dysfunctions are a product of our isolated and incomplete approaches to exercise imposed on our sedentary lifestyles.

Interested in hearing more from Gray Cook on understanding and implementing the Functional Movement Screen? As you identify dysfunctional movement patterns, you should understand that for some reason or another these patterns have been learned and reinforced, or they would not be present. Furthermore, they must have some purpose or practicality for that individual. This means the brain you are getting ready to interact with has assigned value to a movement pattern with less-than-acceptable functional quality. A dysfunctional movement pattern is being used and repeated alongside other functional movement patterns. (p. 624) Both the rectus femoris and the three hamstrings are active, and neither change length from sitting to standing position. We’re really arguing over about 7.5 minutes to do the other tests, but once again, we’ve got other opportunities to provoke pain while also setting a full baseline. When people do research on the Functional Movement Screen, the one thing we tell them is to pull out the zeroes before you even do your study. Those people are already hurt. Letting them into the study doesn’t really help us see anything.Marc, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for this priceless amount of information. You basically saved us all the premium it would cost to glean valuable information from this incredible resource, as well as saving us from continuing to make costly, injurious mistakes in our fitness regimens. As infants, we breathe, then grip, then roll, then crawl. Eventually, we sit, kneel, squat, then stand. So technically, we squat before we can stand. If you have a tight muscle, keep in mind it’s tight for a reason and simply stretching it may not fix the underlying cause. 10) If your knees hurt while you squat, it doesn’t mean squatting is bad for your knees Second, FMS cannot be used for some of the more complicated cases. I know FMS ppl argue that it can, but I've had to use other testing in some of my more severe cases. FMS didn't make the cut. It is a BEGINNER'S GUIDE to corrective testing. Many readers will skip what they consider philosophical mumbo jumbo to get to the discussion about screening, assessment and corrective strategies—after all, tools are the cool stuff. Nevertheless, skipping forward without understanding the basics would be the equivalent of studying the medical remedy for a perceived problem before having the skill to diagnose the cause.

Gray Cook is practicing physical therapist, a orthopedic certified specialist, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and an RKC kettlebell instructor. He is the founder of Functional Movement Systems, a company that promotes the concept of movement pattern screening and assessment. His work and ideas are at the forefront of fitness, conditioning, injury prevention and rehabilitation. You’ll find him lecturing on these topics several weekends each month, worldwide. His career started with an undergraduate degree in sports medicine and exercise science, with minors in athletic training and psychology. His interest took him to the University of Miami, where he studied physical therapy and furthered his strength and conditioning development. Inconsistencies in the FMS are usually stability problems, while consistencies are typically mobility problems. If your right hip is tight, but your left hip is flexible, this asymmetry can lead to a cascade of problems throughout your entire body. The Functional Movement Screen is a systematic approach to assessing movement to help identify dysfunctions before they cause injuries. The FMS is used by strength coaches, personal trainers, and medical professionals around the world. A few weeks ago I traveled up to Suffern, NY to attend a Level 1 Functional Movement Screen (FMS) certification. The creators of the FMS – Gray Cook and Lee Burton – were teaching the course.

10) If your knees hurt while you squat, it doesn’t mean squatting is bad for your knees

Warming up is crucial. As Gray Cook explains, “It’s important to warm up before training, because if someone could improve their state of readiness by one or two percent, that could mean the difference between a good workout and a bad workout, between an excellent workout day or an average one, between an average competition or an excellent one.” So, readiness matters, whether we’re training, having a normal day or competing. But you should review your warm-up to see if it actually improves your readiness. Your state of readiness improves the ease with which you go into and out of positions and postures. It also improves your balance in general, because you are getting your body to organize its signals, reception system and movement response in a more refined way. Neurodevelopmentally speaking, it was always quality before quantity. This should be true with our exercise programs as well. If you have an issue with your active straight leg raise or shoulder mobility, you don’t have the right to go anywhere else in a corrective strategy. Don’t worry about your squat, clean up the active straight leg raise and shoulder mobility FIRST! Spending more time trying to understand and use the positives instead of mainly seeking the negatives, is less destructive if you ask me.. If you go into a movement pattern and the muscles that are being lengthened contract and push you out of the pattern, THIS IS NOT TIGHTNESS. This is actually a contraction, even though the client describes it as tightness. A good example of this involves clients who can’t touch their toes and claim that their hamstrings are tight, when in reality, the hamstrings are turning on (when they should be lengthening) during the movement to provide stability to the pelvis since the core is not doing what it needs to do. This is muscular contraction and not hamstring tightness.