Product Description
Progressions To Build Your Athletic Movement Bank and Unlock Greater Performance
Mark Cheng Prehab Rehab Video — Mark Cheng Groundwork Progressions — Mark Cheng Corrective Exercise Video
by Mark Cheng
Unlock Greater Performance For Your Athletes and Clients
Movement is like money.
You can max out your credit cards to make a purchase in the short term. But in the long run, you’re going to have to pay that bill.
Likewise, when it comes to athletic performance, you can push past what your body is capable of, but sooner or later, you’ll have to pay for it—usually in the form of injury.
You see, if your sport is currently demanding more than your body can give, compromises and imbalances will start to form. This may help fill the gap in the short-term, but it also puts you in greater debt the farther along you push.
As time goes on, if you don’t back off the gas—raise your body’s ability to handle these demands—your debt will eventually build up and require repayment in the form of injury or dysfunction.
Raising Your Ability To Handle Performance Demand Is The Way
Now, for most coaches and trainers trying to continually raise the performance of their clients, backing off the gas over the long term often isn’t an option.
They need to RAISE performance, not lower it.
Which leaves only one real option: raising the body’s ability to handle athletic demands.
If you’re able to raise the body’s abilities to handle any activity and sport, you’ll be able to create a comfortable buffer zone of movement. This acts like savings in the bank that can be drawn upon, rather than having to rely on debt-building credit.
The Key To Injury & Pain-Free Athletic Performance
That’s the key to preventing injury and unlocking better athletic performance.
And for those working in a rehabilitation setting, this is essential for getting patients back into the game of life without pain.
If you’re able to master the inventory of movement that your sport or activities require, you’ll be able to do more with your body without increasing the risk of injury.
That’s what the progressions in Prehab-Rehab 101 will help you achieve. They’ll help you or your clients master a rich inventory of movement that will raise the body’s ability to handle athletic demands without compromise or increased risk of injury.
Whether you’re a professional basketball player, a fighter, a Crossfitter, a P90Xer, a high school athlete, someone coming back from an injury, or someone trying to get back into shape, these progressions will help shore up the weak links in your kinetic chain, and help you move better and more powerfully.
The progressions are based on the neurodevelopmental hierarchy we humans follow, and will help you and your clients support their bodies and move in progressively demanding positions in both life and sport.
The Five Groundwork Positions
In this video, Mark Cheng will explain and demonstrate five positions—
- Periscope
- Sphinx
- Crawling
- Tall-Kneeling
- Half-Kneeling
These five positions will be shown in high detail and you will be given the tools you need to break these exercises down and use them with your clients, athletes and patients.
In each of these positions, Mark highlights different points and presents several training options to allow anyone at any level to benefit.
The five progressions build upon each other. As your clients master each one, they’ll be able to exhibit higher performance with less strain as they learn to use the body more efficiently.
If you’re already familiar with the FMS or the SFMA, these are progressions you can use as you already understand the screens or the assessments, and want to better understand how to apply certain correctives or certain fundamental movement patterns.
Mark explains everything simply, but thoroughly. You’ll learn great cues to use with your clients, and you’ll come away with a better understanding of the purpose and goals of these progressions.
Mark combines his deep knowledge of human movement with his clear, simple and relaxed teaching style that even non-professionals can easily understand.
The workshop itself is conducted in a small group setting. Mark runs through each position with three practicing pain and rehabilitation professionals: Dr. MaryAnne Harrington, Dr. Cody Dimak and Dr. Jimmy Yuan. The unrehearsed nature of the recording, with real people, demonstrates how Mark coaches people with different body types and different strengths and weaknesses.
Whether you’re a clinician dealing with pain and rehabilitation, or a coach wanting to improve performance with your athletes, these progressions will help you unlock the higher performance and breakthroughs in rehabilitation that can get your athletes, patients and clients the results they’re looking for.
What’s Covered in the Presentation
Here’s what is covered (including transcript page references)—
Introduction
- Mark Cheng’s training and athletic background: from Chinese martial artist to presenter for the FMS. pg.1
- The three basic foot positions of standing. pg.2
- What any discussion of fundamental movement has to start with (if you don’t get this correct, your body will reject whatever you’re trying to teach it). pg.3
- How to harness the power of Reactive Neuromuscular Training to help people to learn movements better without having to verbally over-cue. pg.4
- Conserve energy and reduce stress: how to tell if you’re breathing correctly, and where your center of movement should be when it comes to breathing. pg.4
- Coaching cues for correct breathing: how to use a light kettlebell to help people FEEL how they should be breathing. pg.5
The Periscope
- The periscope progressions—a movement that helps us go through maximum range of motion of the neck and head. Great for those who’ve been hunched forward for a long time through sport or workplace ergonomics, as a stepping stone to getting the neck or thoracic spine to be able to move freely. pg.6-7
- A simple way to make sure there’s no stress in the lower body when doing the periscope movement. pg.6
- How to modify the periscope for people with severe kyphosis or weak extensors (for example, for elderly clientele or athletes like boxers who are always taught to stay tight). pg.6
- How to engage muscles in the upper part of the neck and the base of the skull when turning the head on the periscope progression. pg.7
- What to avoid with certain populations on the periscope with neck extension movement. pg.8
- Range of motion vs breathing—which to use as a guide to know how your client is handling the movement. pg.9-10
The Sphinx
- The sphinx progressions—stabilizing the shoulder and integrating it with the neck and head (a good progression for those who throw and hit). pg.9-10
- How to cue your client on the sphinx movement if you notice a lot of neck strain. pg.9
- Set your clients up for success: How to modify the progressions for elderly clientele who fear being on the floor. pg.9
- How to identify asymmetries in rotation using the sphinx progressions. pg.10
- How to cue your client to engage the core and lats for stability instead of the neck in the sphinx progression. pg.10
- Spinx progressions to learn to issue and absorb force through one or both shoulders. pg.12
- Sphinx progression to build reactive speed through the shoulder joint. pg.13-14
- How to fire up the single biggest burner of glucose in the human body. pg.13-14
- How to make it easier for your client to stay engaged and build more repetitions of movements. pg.14
- How far into fatigue you should train to develop strength on the sphinx progression. pg.14
- Verbal and tactile cues on the sphinx progression for those who are upper-trap dominant (and why Mark tries not to use the common ‘pinch your shoulder blades together’ cue). pg.15
Crawling
- How to properly set up the crawling position. pg.15-16
- How to modify the crawling position when there’s limited neck range of motion. pg.15
- Where your eyes should be looking when in the crawl position. pg.17
- How to add load to the crawl position. pg.18-19
- Where your hips should be positioned in the bear crawl position. pg.19
- What happens to your line of sight when you find these positions challenging. pg.20
- Modifying the crawl progression sequence for elderly clients. pg.20
- A crawl progression that works well with athletes who need to be functional and strong in a variety of contexts. pg.21
- Alternatives on the crawling and climbing movements for those with wrist issues. pg.21
- Recommendations for the crawl position with patients who have had knee replacements. pg.22
- How long a set should be—the optimal duration. pg.22
Tall-Kneeling
- Helping your clients set up the tall-kneeling position. pg.23
- A simple visual feedback tool to help your clients get into neutral pelvic tilt. pg.23-24
- Modifications for the tall-kneeling to help unstable patients ease into the posture. pg.24
- How to modify the tall-kneeling for those whose quads are too tight to achieve a level pelvis. pg.24
- How to use the tall-kneeling to improve the ability to catch off either the right or left sides. pg.24
- How to change the center of gravity in the tall-kneeling position. pg.24
- Introducing load in the tall-kneeling progression. pg.25
- When to stop a set of loaded tall-kneeling movements. pg.26
- How to set up and perform the chop-and-lift. pg.26
- Going to failure—how to know when to stop the chop-and-lift. pg.26
- A tool to try in tall-kneeling that slightly compromises the visual system and teaches full engagement of the nervous system. pg.27
- Breathing during the chop-and-lift movement. pg.28-29
- Modifications for people who have knee pain in tall-kneeling. pg.28
Half-Kneeling
- Setting up the half-kneeling position. pg.29-30
- What to do if you tend to shift your hips forward on the half-kneeling position. pg.30
- What to do if you’re having a harder time on one side in the half-kneeling position. pg.31
- The goals of the half-kneeling position—what you should be working towards before moving onto the next level of progression. pg.31
- The three systems that you must engage to improve balance. pg.31
- Whether it’s bad if your client wobbles during the movements. pg.32
- Cues for the half-kneeling movement to help you avoid reinforcing bad habits. pg.32
- What type of work people who do a lot of plyometrics should focus on to reduce the risk of injury. pg.33
- Variations of the chop-and-lift that teach the upper body to be responsive and mobile while keeping the lower body stable. pg.33-34
- Time split recommendations for people who get fried quickly in half-kneeling, or who have asymmetries. pg.34
- Great modifiers from the tall-kneeling that are available to you as a trainer. pg.35
Get Your Copy of Prehab Rehab Today
If you want to unlock higher performance in your athletes, patients and clients, get Mark Cheng’s Prehab-Rehab 101 and start working through his five groundwork progressions today.
James T Ferris –
One thing I enjoy is hearing how others cue. Mark did a great job of that. I also enjoyed seeing different body types being used, as well as seeing some common questions from the three demonstrating.
Robert Verdell –
Speechless! One of the best put-together products I’ve ever seen. So many good things about this product.
I first came upon Mark many moons ago, reading through a copy of Black belt Illustrated, a magazine I worshiped throughout my teens and early adulthood. I was a pure “combative” artist then, with my interest being in wrestling, boxing, kickboxing and Judo. I usually glossed over any “internal” style of the the martial arts, yet it was something about Mark’s expression of tai chi that escaped into my soul only to be uncovered years later. Then, I got into KB swings, and whose name pops up again? Mark Cheng. Just the fact that a famous TCMA instructor would utilize a tool like the KB peeked my interest more.
And just when I’m getting to the heart of FMS…there he is again, How long will this go on?
As I transitioned training philosophy from powerlifter, weightlifter, to Ashtanga yoga, Pilates and to Russian Movement Therapy with Scott Sonnon, Core Strength Vinyasa yoga, Thai yoga massage, Somatic yoga and Feldenkrais , Tai chi and qigong, now to only the best researched-based movements to an entity that housed the DNA of all I had studied.
I’ve spent 1,000s of dollars on movement based programs via dvd/books and teacher trainings. Yet, in the last few years, I’d seen all of the best that applied to what I was doing.
When I got Mark’s Rehab-Prehab program I was very positive. I wasn’t disappointed!
1) the setting was perfect. Intimate space with Mark and three very different practicing doctors, who he had not rehearsed prior.
2)Mark is extremely knowledgeable. He mentioned many things I was familiar with, but he also taught me a lot, not with big movement or medical terms, but with short simple statements I had to write down.
“The workout is the precision.” I will remember that forever, for it’s the new mantra of my class. Mark uses a vocabulary that non-professionals can understand, yet this product appears to be more for trainers already in the field. The power is in his skill of knowing how, when and what to cue.. “Widening the chest” is one meant for me and my clients.
Mark’s tone is non-threatening but commanding.
3) The training is built upon a child movement developing from prone, crawling, tall-kneeling and half-kneeling. The movements used the same progressions with cervical rotation, reaching and in some cases cross-crawling and reaching, with a major emphasis on how to use the eyes.
There were some props, wall, Airex pads, sandbags, k-bells, balls, cable and a cool pair of glasses, All there to make it right for a specific stage of movement and for specific clients.
The gold star from me comes from him using real people who were not perfect. You could see their weaknesses before Mark gently gave them suggestions to correct.
I’ve already use the prone and six-point movements in my class this week with very positive reflections.
I will make this my central movement focus, until I own it!
Thanks, Mark
Sarah Young, MS –
When I first got wind that Dr. Mark Cheng was working on this project ‘Prehab-Rehab 101’ I had a hard time being patient for its release. But I was patient… and Movement Lectures & Dr. Cheng more than deliver!!
When I received my DVD I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I couldn’t wait to watch it. I have followed Dr. Cheng’s work over the last few years and have been impressed with his depth of knowledge of human movement, his simple and relaxed teaching style, his ability to clearly communicate, and his humility and humor. After viewing ‘Prehab-Rehab 101’ several times all I have to say is, “Wow!!”
There is so much richness of information in this DVD to help individuals move better. And synchronicity being as it is, the information Dr. Cheng delivers in this package blends seamlessly with the system I have been studying for the past year, “Original Strength” (Tim Anderson & Geoff Neupert).
In my journey to understand human movement I have found that many “systems” have “limited entry.” If you’re not already at a certain level of movement mastery many movement systems can leave an individual frustrated and/or injured. What Dr. Cheng offers in this DVD is a variety of ‘keys’ that make other systems accessible. ‘Prehab-Rehab’ offers an individual ways to get his/her body moving better, for their sport and life, in a safe and progressive fashion.
He demonstrates the exercises with three different individuals with three different body types. This allows for more “what if?” opportunities. Dr. Cheng articulates each exercise and scenario clearly & thoroughly and in a relaxed fashion. His cuing is brilliant!!
If you work in a movement field I highly recommend ‘Prehab-Rehab 101’!! I’d even go so far to say that if your work involves helping people move better and you don’t get this DVD set you are doing a disservice to yourself and your clients. Thank you Dr. Mark Cheng and Movement Lectures… You help me do a better job of helping others!!! Now when is “Prehab-Rehab 101: Vol. 2” coming out???
Brandon Hetzler MS, ATC, SFG –
Nothing fancy, just the basics – and that makes this product head and shoulders above what others have attempted to do with the developmental sequence. I’ve spent the past 5 years being heavily involved in the developmental sequence from both a rehab perspective and a sports performance perspective. It seems like every month some new “expert” emerges or some new product/workshop is being offered. After investigating all these products I’m always disappointed because the “experts” have taken a path that focuses on how to market their product and not the content of their product.
Prehab Rehab 101 is different. Doc Cheng presents some very simple developmental positions (not easy for some people), and then gives several training options in each one that allows anyone at any level to benefit. He didn’t attempt to complicate things or create something new, he kept thing simple – and that is where the brilliance is. I was blown away by is crawling interventions. FINALLY, someone presented crawling interventions that weren’t just crawling further or with a load. These are actual modifications to crawling, that will improve crawling and everything that crawling does (shoulder stability, hip stability, trunk stability and the plethora of neurological benefits.) This section of the DVD alone makes it worth the price.
I am hard to impress and very critical, especially in the areas of my professional interest. When Doc Cheng told me he was releasing his product I was both excited and bit nervous – I didn’t want to have to tell him he had put out a product that was crap. But after watching the DVDs and taking many, many pages of notes I can say without hesitation that this IS the best product on the market when it comes to neurological interventions.
Analisa –
P-R101 is an excellent tool for coaches working with both athletes and the general population.
Doc provides clear, concise explanations of each progression, using three different body types to illustrate each skill and movement. During his explanations, (true to his teaching personality) he includes real-world application, that allows the student (viewer) to not only understand what they see in front of them but leave each segment with practical implementation strategies.
Doc includes a Q&A segment at the end of each skill set in order to dig deeper into potential situations that as coaches, we often experience but don’t have the luxury of exploring when continuing our education in this format. Very solid add as an instructor here!
I’ve enjoyed applying the progressions/regressions and appreciate that it is not only a useful tool for my general population, but also for performance based students and athletes.
Well done Doc and team!
Greg Dea, Sports Physiotherapist –
definitely enjoyed watching Dr. Mark Cheng’s “PR101 – the Groundwork Progressions.” There is so much sizzle in the metaphorical steaks he serves up. Dr. Cheng provides many features in the two-disc program – the benefits are less tangible to the untrained eye but lie in rich veins of stimulus.
It isn’t the first program to teach groundwork progressions – there are several high quality programs and courses that teach isolated groundwork drills (both loaded and unloaded) to support concepts or fragments of courses. It is however, perhaps the first to provide students/coaches/practitioners and self-driven individuals with excellent examples of progressive prehabilitation drills – those progressions that form a backbone for exploration of movement that serves to improve readiness for higher levels of activity.
The program respects and works within the Functional Movement Systems corrective exercise model that basic bodyweight movement patterns should be free from pain, should be free from movement limitations (ie have mobility), and free from asymmetries.
It includes the underlying benefits of correct breathing patterns through progressively more challenging postures.
It offers opportunities to manage movement mistakes at the edge of ability, forming a rich, sensory environment for neuromuscular training.
It provides rich opportunity to work around the joint-by-joint concept of movement.
The content and context was developed from a long, erudite and astutely professional career influenced by clinical assessment, screening, testing, treatment, holistic health management, movement rehabilitation and conditioning. As such, I understood the content and context since I’ve studied and practiced many of the same principles and methods. The student, coach, client or athlete who watches, studies and puts into practice Dr. Cheng’s teachings will benefit for many reasons, often without knowing why. They’ll experience so many benefits whilst they’re concentrating on the features – the different movement progressions.
The many benefits include: · The constant reminder of normal breathing patterns that are often overlooked in exercise prescription, with valid cues for correction; · The activation of so many body segments in neurodevelopmental sequencing so important for progressing from fundamental competency towards performance capacity; · The cooperation of fascial slings and movement sequences that permit the trained eye to assess competency, driving further recommendations around clearing pain, or referring for appropriate assessment and management where a reset of movement limitations can occur first.
Dr. Cheng provides movements in positions that start from primitive and fundamental “tummy time”, having his models explore basic eye, neck and head movement as they might have when they were babies, with underlying mobility and free of pain. The progressions follow the same development of babies, known as the neurodevelopmental hierarchy, where an individual earns the right to support their body and move in ever more demanding positions, against gravity, with less contact points of support. These progressions provide an order of postures and movements to enrich the three sensory systems that are key to movement – the visual, the vestibular and the somatosensory system. The program finishes with movements in split kneeling, completing the ground work positions before an individual moves to standing – one suspects a future project to include these.
I found myself thinking of so many other exercises for the positions and movements that Dr. Cheng teaches in the video – and I reminded myself that my own bias reflects the fact that with any viewer – personal and professional bias will provide an even richer experience. So, with that in mind, as I commented earlier, these progressions form a backbone for exploration of movement that serves to improve readiness for higher levels of activity (prehab) and restore movement competency in preparation for movement capacity. We are provided with real examples, in a hierarchical progression based on the neurodevelopmental model of the Functional Movement Systems principle of:
“Move Well. Move Often”
It’s worth noting that the period after “Move Well” is designed to represent a minimum standard, a finite, line-in-the-sand level of competency in moving well. Then, the absence of a period after “Move Often” is perfect for an open ended lifetime of experiencing movement.
I thought of the many teachers of movement who’d provide different points of view about why they’d do a movement with some degree of difference. But for the athlete/client/coach who’s going through the movement series, thinking about the movements/drills/exercises is not required so much. The experience of the drills drives motor patterns at a subsconscious level via neuromuscular learning. Conscious competency is debatably not as important as movement competency. The language of movement is not written in thoughts and words, but in feelings driven by cues.
At times I internally critiqued Dr. Cheng for verbally coaching too much and cueing too little – for example, not including more compression or distraction cues, or RNT facilitation – and I remind myself this is 101. And I know he’s a great talker, a great instructor, an expert quality-before-quantity yet results-driven coach and the act of producing an instructional video requires presenting more verbal cues than it does for the type of non-filmed interactions we’d normally do. And the discussion around cueing and coaching combinations can be endless.
I also acknowledge that my current assignment of assessing, screening, testing, treating, rehabilitating and coaching in China has made me more acutely biased towards tactile and non-verbal cueing via reactive neuromuscular training, so I recognize my criticism is more biased than I might have been a year ago. In the US, and with consciously aware American chiropractors as models in the program, Dr. Cheng’s verbal coaching is, of course, appropriate.
An example of critical thought around the cueing involves Dr. Cheng’s excellent emphasis on eye movements as drivers of neck movements, more caudal spinal movements and distal girdle and limb movements. The nature of the filming process, in a group athlete setting, with verbal coaching cues, means athletes turn their eyes to he who speaks. And if the direction of eye turning is against the intended direction, a mixed motor pattern is activated.
My ideas flowed when I watched PR101. I thought of watching the chiros hold their breath at times. I watched as they had movement limitations. I wanted to apply a Functional Movement Systems approach and breakout to assess for underlying pain, JMDs/TEDs and/or fundamental SMCDs that might have been due to trigger points or dormant motor patterns. I wanted the discussion to go there at times, and I knew that my understandings, my pursuits of understanding in our chosen profession, has advanced well beyond that of many for whom this program may be aimed at. That those many viewers require uncomplicated progressions without tangential breakouts. To Dr. Cheng’s credit, the debrief discussions at chapter ends mimic the type of scenarios that permit such exploration of difficulties with movement drills.
I don’t raise these to criticize the programming, I raise them more to highlight how the program has made me think more about the different ways to achieve movement competency, but that pays respect to the neurodevelopmental hierarchy we as humans are mapped by when it comes to movement – any program that challenges thinking around this topic, with examples and progressions, is one worthy of studying over and over again.
I rate it 4.5 breathing movements out of 5.
James West –
I have been looking for a product like this for a while now. Basic progressions starting very primitive. But the thing I like most about it is how well Dr. Cheng explains every thing. He is a great teacher and I got many great cues and now better understand things I thought I already understood well. Keep making products Dr Cheng and I’ll keep buying them!
Eric Lazar –
What more praise can be thrown upon Doc Cheng’s Prehab/Rehab 101 DVD? I’m a person who can only provide constructive criticism, but the problem here is I have nothing to criticize! Doc Cheng takes very profound movement principles from his incredibly diverse background and experience, and turns them into something that any professional in the movement realm can immediately apply to any patient/client population. This is one of the best examples out on the market on how to work along the movement continuum. I will be using it as a teaching tool for both students and patients, as well as a key component to my thought process to exercise progression/lateralization/regression with my patients. Thanks Doc! Looking forward to Prehab/Rehab 102 or 201 or whatever name you give it!
Eric Lazar