Gray Cook: Working on Breathing in Patterns

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Gray Cook discusses using the Functional Movement Screen to identify and correct pattern-based and position-based breathing problems.

Excerpted from Gray Cook and Greg Rose: Three Principles You Can Apply To Any Movement

It has become very cliché in fitness right now to take every problem to breathing.

When a yogi master puts you in different positions, he already knows that you’ve got an authentic breathing problem. He’s looking for the one position, the one pattern, the one hold or the one posture that robs you of everything.

That’s the one I’ve got to teach you to confront. I could work on his breathing in every other pattern and I would not have a measuring stick but there’s a good chance that you’ve got your biggest breathing issue in whatever pattern you’ve got a 1, so I’m not going to make his push-up a breathing pattern.

I’d better really watch the way he’s breathing when he’s planking, bear crawling, side planking or doing something because there’s a good chance that whenever you load your core, you’re in a full-on breath hold.

The full-on breath hold is robbing you of core strength.

More on breathing at On Target Publications:

Breathing Education Bundle

More on the philosophy behind Functional Movement Systems from Gray Cook and Greg Rose:

Gray Cook & Greg Rose: Three Principles You Can Apply To Any Movement

Gray Cook

Gray Cook is a physical therapist, author, lecturer and strength coach. He, along with his partners at Functional Movement Systems, is the developer of the Functional Movement Screen and the Selective Functional Movement Assessment. Gray consults with professional and university coaches and athletes, and teaches on various aspects of physical therapy, sports medicine and performance enhancement.

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Gray Cook: Working on Breathing in Patterns

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