Corrective Movement Un Covered: Primitive Patterns, Myths and Strategies
Corrective movement is a modality within the health and wellness realm; which we like to call the “transition zone.” Corrective movement opens the door for coaches and professionals in the fitness industry to screen, assess and correct breakdowns in a client or athletes movement mechanics.
In my practice I use this style of training to either (a) pre screen a client who may need to see a physiotherapist or medical professional or (b) the client has been referred by a physiotherapist or medical professional and thus, my role is to “transition” the client from the clinical to the coaching again.
The following video selections are favorite videos I have chosen from the FMS library for you to be become more familiar with Corrective Movement, common mistakes and myths in the industry and the written portions of the article is direct excerpts from Gray Cook’s website and movement book.
CORRECTIVE MOVEMENT MECHANICS:
“Movement Competency: The ability to employ fundamental movement patterns like single-leg balance, squatting, reflex core stabilization and symmetrical limb movement. This can also include basic coordination with reciprocal movement patterns like crawling and lunging. The central goal is not to assess physical prowess or fitness, but to establish a fundamental blueprint and baseline of quality not quantity.
Physical Capacity: The ability to produce work, propel the body or perform skills that can be quantified to establish an objective level of performance. If movement competency is present at or above a minimum acceptable level of quality, deficits in physical capacity can be addressed with work targeting performance. If movement competency is not adequate, it would be incorrect to assume that a physical capacity deficiency could be addressed by working only on physical capacity.
Growth and development follow the path of competency to capacity, but how many fitness and athletic programs parallel this time-honored gold standard of motor development? If screens and standards for movement competency are not employed, we are programming on a guess. Furthermore, if our testing does not clearly separate movement competency tests and physical capacity tests, we exchange a guess for an assumption.
In the Movement book we emphasize the importance of movement competency through screening and assessment, and we further separate movement categories to help the exercise and rehabilitation professional categorize movement deficiency in clients and patients.” – Gray Cook
COMMON MISTAKES & MYTHS:
Exercise professionals too often overlook the fundamental movements because highly active individuals can often perform many high level movements without easily observable deficits. The Functional Movement Screen was first introduced to give us greater relative insight into primitive patterns by identifying limitations and asymmetries. The FMS screen is a way of taking it back to the basics and recognizing that these patterns are fundamental; a key factor is that they are common during the growth and developmental sequence, and thus taking it back to primitive movement, we may be able to overcome some of these common compensations.
VIDEO 1: Gray Cook: Common Mistakes Made in Corrective Movement vs Strength Movement
Video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75-c_xYHZHQ&feature=colike
PRIMITIVE PATTERNS: BACK TO BASICS
Consideration of primitive patterns can help make you a more intuitive, and intelligent exercise professional. Very often we become experts in exercise without considering growth and development, which is where the fundamentals of movement were first established. As explained in this video, these fundamental movements include rolling, pushing up, quadruped, and crawling. This foundation is often neglected in the approaches we take to enhance function and/or performance through exercise programming.
The first rule of functional performance is not forgetting fundamentals. In order to progress to movement we first learned to reflexively stabilize the spine, in order to control movement more distally in the extremities, this happened naturally during growth and development. However, many individuals lose the ability to naturally stabilize as they age due to asymmetries, injuries, poor training or daily activities. The individuals who do this develop compensatory movements, which then create inefficiencies and asymmetries in fundamental movements.
VIDEO 2: Gray Cook and Lee Burton: Secrets of Primitive Patterns http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxRy55CeoQg&feature=share&list=PL77D5203810F6A356
THE FMS SCREEN UNCOVERED:
Here Gray talks about how to do a self movement screen. It can be done and assesed by a Pass or Fail marking scheme. It covers 7 important movement patterns, which are the Deep Squat, In-Line Lunge, Hurdle Step, Rotation, and Active Straight Leg Raise, as well a 2 clearing tests to asses spinal extension and flexion in a fixed position.
Modern fitness and training science has bestowed upon us the ability to create strength and power in the presence of extremely poor dysfunction. This dysfunction means that fundamental movement patterns are limited, asymmetrical or barely present. Just because we can make people bigger, faster and stronger on top of this does not make it right. Seated, fixed-axis equipment perpetuates the illusion of fitness without enhancing functional performance. Utilize all of your tools to uncover an individual’s dysfunction and then work to correct it. The result will be an individual who moves more efficiently, thereby creating a foundation for more effective strength, endurance and power training.
VIDEO TWO; Gray Cook: Self Movement Screen:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8G6jkEf1uI&feature=related
Here are a couple quick techniques you can utilize to observe primitive movements, checking for asymmetry and limitation in rotary stability and how to learn to fire the core!!! Everyone’s favorite:
The “Core” is the Foundation to Primitive Patterning: We call it Trunk Stability
Gray Cook; Sequence of Core Firing
Video: http://youtu.be/gEIHeaNmSok
Sources: The Importance of Primitive Movement Patterns
Gray Cook, MSPT, OCS, CSCS and Lee Burton, PhD, AT
Website: http://graycook.com/?m=201104
