Book Excerpts
Movement: Functional Movement Systems
Gray Cook, Movement: Self-Limiting Exercise
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.
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Advances in Functional Training: Training Techniques for Coaches, Personal Trainers and Athletes
Michael Boyle, The Joint-by-Joint Approach
If you are not yet familiar with the joint-by-joint theory, be prepared to take a quantum leap in thought process. My good friend, physical therapist Gray Cook has a gift for simplifying complex topics. In a conversation about the effect of training on the body, Gray produced one of the most lucid ideas I have ever heard.
We were discussing the findings of his Functional Movement Screen (FMS), the needs of the different joints of the body and how the function of the joints relate to training. One beauty of the FMS is it allows us to distinguish between issues of stability and those of mobility; Gray’s thoughts led me to realize the future of training may be a joint-by-joint approach, rather than a movement-based approach.
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Advances in Functional Training: Training Techniques for Coaches, Personal Trainers and Athletes
Michael Boyle, Classifications of Single-Leg Exercises Excerpt, pages 216-219
One of the major changes of the last decade in the fields of strength and conditioning and personal training has been an increased emphasis on exercises considered both functional and multi-planar. Where many strength coaches and trainers previously relied on bilateral exercises like squats and leg presses, we now regularly use exercises like lunges and one-leg squats. We’ll next look at the menu of single-leg exercises to classify the relative differences and benefits of each exercise, and evaluate where these exercises might best fit into our programs.
As we use more and more single-leg exercises with our athletes, we’ve broken these exercises into categories and placed the exercises in progressions. One of the drawbacks of having a broad range of exercises available is determining which exercise is appropriate for which individual, and at what point in training should each be used.
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Movement: Functional Movement Systems
Gray Cook, Movement: Expanding on the Joint-by-Joint Approach to Training
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–
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