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The Fundamental Principles of Mobility

Lesson 2 from: FAST CLASS: Maintain Your Body for Long Lasting Health & Mobility

Kelly Starrett, Jill Miller

The Fundamental Principles of Mobility

Lesson 2 from: FAST CLASS: Maintain Your Body for Long Lasting Health & Mobility

Kelly Starrett, Jill Miller

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Lesson Info

2. The Fundamental Principles of Mobility

Lesson Info

The Fundamental Principles of Mobility

Here's what you need to go now We started. Have we have a framework for understanding what's what we're after now that's going to delve into some of them universal principles about how the bodies organized. What's nice is that if you have a set of schema, if you have a basic organization organizing principle, then you can start to apply that. And we'll keep doing that to sitting Teoh, holding something heavy to carrying a baby, carrying two, sitting to lifting so well what we need to make sure that we have some that basic theory first. So that's probably where should we should start on, then will in the next kind of our also hit that where the rubber hits the road and we'll actually watch you guys do some movement and express these things in some mid range movement. The squad, which is a archetypal foundation movement and mid range pressing, getting up off the ground, pressing in front of which is also ah, very archetype of midrange movement makes sense. All right, so here's what video...

, as we get into these principles you want to talk about first, is why we prioritize the spine. First, we do this for a couple reasons, and this fits with our schema definition of functional movement to is that I will have to work in a way of contraction from trunk to poor, free from quarter sleeve on. One of the reasons we have to hammer on the spine first is one central nervous system. Injury is a bummer, and here's the deal is that if you ever tweet your back or injured your back, you know it is not fun. You're down and out for the count, and it's because your body triage is it in a way, because it's thinking, Hey, look, this is a primary threat to the organism. You know, you evolved a brain to move through the environment. That's what all the science says. All the research. Is that how you're wired for movement and you're wired to be able to move to the environment? Skill acquisition is a complex biologic phenomenon to make you move more efficiently so you can hunt and reproduce and do all these things you're supposed to do, comma. When you enter the central nervous system, you put a threat out there that maybe the animal is gonna be primarily taxed. And so what ends up happening is you have a commensurate response of severity where literally your body freaks out. And if you've injured your back, you know you do not want lift heavy things. You do not want to sit. You do not want to make out dirty dance. Maybe a little during dancing. You get the idea. But the key is that we want to prioritise the spine first. And in terms of athleticism or function, you will tweak your back in your lifetime. Everyone will comma. You'll probably heal from that, but it costs you a lot of psychosocial psychogenic energy table to manage that. And if you're an athlete, you know this means that you've lost two or three days of training or if it's your neck, we're talking about your hands now. You can't work. You're afraid to pick up your kids. The women I've talked to have had babies and bad posture. It's a disaster, so we want to make sure that we are thinking, Hey, we better privatize the spine first, and that means prioritize the spine first in terms of organized organization and movement, but also organizing in terms off understanding what we need to fix first. So we always speak. Fix the spine first. The second reason is this is it. The spine has major potential to decrease your force production to decrease or force. And let me give an example. Can you have a second cop now? When Kyle got up, his feet turned out like a duck and his knees came in a little bit. Right. So what we would say is I would give him a coaching cube. Terrible tude. All right, so we're gonna make a better decision. And here's the problem. Wasn't thinking about it. I know he knows how to squat. He's a phenomenal athlete, but it's that detail where we start to practice because he became unconscious. Feet just happened to turn out, you have to sit in the worst chair possible. It is the worst year possible, right? And so what was the default? Well, he defaulted right to where he waas, so don't do that again. As my wife would say, Make a better decision or best coaching Q 2 May. So here's where dio me show you the the impact that when you lose your spinal integrity, what happens and This is one of the reasons why Jill's piece coming up is gonna be so important to spread your fingers out hard. You can make those stiff stiff. So what I've done is giving him a cue to stiffen his elbow. Eyes level. I'm gonna try to bend his elbow. If he bends his elbow, we have in the back 1000 kittens that will be killed. We're playing for death does not bother you, kitten. Killing seems to bother people. Hold. Don't move. You know, watch. I'm gonna work on the stump in kitchens. No way. He's legit. Okay, now watch what happens now. All I'm gonna do is have him changes neck position, a little bit under load. So when I tell him, he'll look up. We're gonna double the kittens. Real out the second load of kids. Okay, If you bend kids, it's kitten mayhem. Okay, hold. Don't look up to tell you. Be stiff. It's for the kittens. Hold. My daughters are watching this old and look up on, and he looks up. He starts to bend his arm right away. What's happening there? Is that which arm down for second is that he has this complex neural mechanical, his nerves and mechanical system of his of his body. All Inter relate in his back is this big thing called Death Oracle Dorsal fashion, which is a big sheet of connective tissue through which all of the spine is processes stick out. And so if he suddenly kinks that position and breaks that, then he loses integrity in that big sheet. And that's one of the mechanisms through which has spying created stability so that he's lost the sort of the 10 sec gritty or the tension in the sheet to make the whole system mechanically stable. Are you following? Okay, that's one problem. The second problem is that when he puts that back to see this tissue hinge right here, he actually is not creating local global flexion in the system or global extension. This system Excuse me. He's actually creating a hinge, and he's literally hinging at one of its segments. And so he's stiff to this upper back. We know why. Because he's attacked lastly, and a big strong guy, etcetera, etcetera and so ends up hinging right here. When he puts a hinge across the nervous system, the body recognizes that is a primary insult and threat to the body because you're basically guillotine door hinge, the nervous system, your kink, the tube. And so it just drops off. And if we extrapolated a good that's killing me straight There we extrapolate your sitting position with your eyes level. This is what happens if you around in a little bit in your sitting is that your eyes will stay level on orientate. And if we stood you up, you would see the same basic mechanical shape expressed. And this is one of the reasons while this sitting forward position is so harmful now, it was creating sheer and hinged to that segment. I just get a lot of action in that, and I think I'm getting his neck pain so weird and it's not that unusual. But if I extrapolate that blow it up, it's this position. The same thing happens if he looks down. So we do the same thing. Double the kittens or nothing. Okay, this time you'll have to kill the kittens yourself. Little kitten blood. All right, hold on, kitten. Blood. Maybe new favorite band title holds. Don't let me move. You don't break. Be stiff. And then looked out there, and he breaks right away when he loses that. In fact, when his body undergoes that flexion his body experienced, that is a significant threat. And what's that flexion look like? Sitting in your chair, hanging on the meat? There's that rounded position. So we need to be able to identify. Some of the reasons is that it puts that nervous system in tow untenable positions and threatens my force production, which means I'm threatened by stability. And this is the second reason Thank you very much. Sorry about all the kittens. So the third reason is this. The spine is the carriage or chassis for the engines, and we call these primary engines off. Wait for it hip and shoulder. Oh, that's a language, you understand. Hip and shoulder. Okay, so what's happening is that we call these the primary engines on. What we know is that when I'm disorganized at the trunk, I can't really start to see what's going on in real time at the hip in the shoulder. Which means that everything else ends up having a problem. Steve, come in for a second. Oh, good. Well, weight on your heels. You didn't have your toe screwed into the ground. That's fine. We'll talk about that. Okay, so here's what I want you to dio. I'm gonna just over extend a little bit. So I'm just I'm sitting up in my chair and I want you to just internally rotate me. So you're gonna grab my elbow, push my hand down. What injury? Rotate me. Tell us that we'll get stops. Did you see that? God's gentle with stops stops. Go ahead and you'll feel it. Stop. Do you feel stop? Okay, I'm just a little bit overextended. I'm a little bit out of spinal position now. Watch what happens as soon as I go and come off Attentional cook As soon as I put my rib cage down where belongs Now go ahead and turn. Rotate me and see if there's anything changed. Keep going. Keep it. It's weird. Have you hit that hard stop yet? No, not yet. There you go. Does that look different? Do you need a laser going ometer to measure that, or can you see that That impacts my position? Somehow we'll all we've done is put the spied into position so that my scapula can relate to more effectively on as long as I end up in a dysfunctional pelvic position. I can't really have often will hip function and subsequently need function. If I'm in a dysfunctional rib cage position or spine position, I'm never gonna get hold of what's happening in the rest of the system, which means is always gonna be disorganized. We've gotta prioritizes. Fine, thanks very much. All right, spine. First second aspect of this, then, is that we see movement around the spine. It's pretty simple idea we want to avoid. We call local flexion or extension faults, which is exactly what this question is. So if here is the most beautiful woman in the world, you can't see her yet. This is how my wife looks to me, right? What I should see is that I should not see flexion forward or extension backwards, flexion or extension happening in localized positions. So if you see a globally flex position or global global flexor globally extended position like I'm hitting a volleyball, the net I'm swimming right. Doing afford somersault, have to be able to adopt those shapes for sport in life. But if you see me create a local hinge in the system. That's a fault. And you can identify that and oftentimes will get physically hinge in the tissue. The places where we tend to see these hinges are at the neck at the thrashed. Explain, right, The bottom of the rib cage here. So we tend to see these hinges kind of here at this interface right here at the bottom of the rib cage at this interface and at the interface of the lumbar to the pelvis, these air sections that tend to kind of get a lot of sloppy motion in there. And so what we want to do is we want to avoid these local extension faults. So the one joint rule is this the only place where I should see massive amount? Ah, flexion or extension is in the shoulder in the hip. Oh, that's easy. And what really does this allows me to simplify a lot of the complex movement that I undergo Is that how do I break it down to its most fundamental constituents if minimal number of moving parts? And so, if I'm organized around the spine, the only places where I should see large motions of flexion or extension are in the shoulders and full flexion, full extension and in the hip, full flexion, full extension. And so when I can start to evaluate some of the robust Ince's of people's positions, if all of a sudden you watch me squat, how maney hip joints dough I have now, suddenly I have this hip joint, which is undergoing collection. But I also suddenly have a couple other hinge joints, and I shouldn't. This should be a chassis off of which my basic elements should move of. This, that hip that makes sense. Are you tracking me on that right? No local flexion extension faults, and what you'll see is that we tend to break a lot in these basic fundamental positions and shapes. And it's easy to identify in movement on your kids or or even if you're sitting. So if you're sitting flexed, you got a local extension fault there, Pam. That's the problem. So it becomes very simple. We start toe, have a scheme, and now, for understanding how the bodies organized, we need to prioritize the trunk. First check does that. What's that look like? How do I get bracing organized? We'll talk about that in a second. And then, Boy, I shouldn't see local breaks in. The only place I should see is in the hip and shoulder. Carl Palley, who's gonna be on this afternoon, has a great model for this. He's like the best example of this is men's gymnastics rings. Have you ever seen that sport? It's a dump sport. It's ridiculous. Look how stupid this is. Bear with me, stiffened everything. Lock your wrists out, lock your elbows out and move your shoulders around. That's what it is, right? It's a shoulder movement sport and let go. I'm so impressed you were didn't move anything else and you only moved his shoulders. How difficult is it to do that? I know like five people in the world who can do that sport. That's how difficult it is. And what they're really done is they've brought down this archetype where they brought down the minimal number of movements are expressing rotation through a single joint. That's how difficult that is to stiffen and simplify these things. And what we want to do is start to simplify the way I pick up my kids or the way lift up off the ground or dead lift. I prioritised the spine first. I should only see movement happen at the hip because that's designed to handle it right and then a little bit in the second engine. But it's really about trying to minimize the amount number of variables in the spine. Sorry about that. So that's the one joint rule which gets us into the laws of torque for us. We're fortunate because the shoulder on the help of the same joint so they obey the same principles physiologically very, very similar structures, in fact, interesting that they both have a head that looks like this. You'll notice that the arm here top of the arm is a ball and socket, and the hip is a ball and socket, right that there to bones and that there are two bones. And weirdly, this looks like that foot in a strange way, doesn't it? It's very analogous, and it's structures. The function is very similar to the organization is similar. Once I have accounted for the extra degrees of range of motion and account for the scapula. I basically have the same system, so guess what they organized the same way, which means if you understand that one organizes you understand how to secular organized. So take your hand, put it in your shirt. This is the model for how your joint sits inside its joint capsule, which is this bag of fiber. Oh, Cartlidge. It's a sack that gives the whole thing integrity. Now I couldn't grab the shirt. Try to tighten it up for me. Tighten up the shirt. You can get all the slack out and get a pretty tight right, but you'll never get it really tight. How would we make that tight? What would we do? Twist it. So if I add rotation to that all of a sudden want Oh my, it's like a piece of candy. It's weird how they wrapped the candy up, isn't it? Well, your body has figured out the same thing, and that when I create that rotation inside the joints of the hip in the shoulder, I create stability through the whole system. If you break down the movements of the coaching cues than what you're going to see is most of the coaching cues we've been using our whole life and her whole life are actually queues of rotation. The other ones are about your spine. Get tight, you know, get ready, squeeze your But you know it's all about either prioritizing the trunk first or elbow in. Break the bar knees out and you're going to see that a lot of these languages relate to the laws of torque. So in all motions of flexion, which is arm going up hip going up, there's a corresponding rotational force. What is that corresponding torque or rotational force that makes this this stable. Now, I know some of you guys know this. So here's the deal is that the problem with my field is that we have divorced the language of movement from the language that you use, which is you've been a athlete and a human being your whole life. We need a leverage, that skill set. Everyone can relate to how we're supposed to do things, so check this out. Let's let's break this down for a second, we said earlier. How does the Queen wave? Why would she wave in this position? Because the wrist and elbow and shoulder and externally rotated position it ends up being very stable and so weird that the queen waves in the exact same way Head is neutral because you can do that all day, had his shoulders organized. Risk is organized, and that's the same quick reload for all that we're taught, isn't it? For all of the close quarter combat stuff for shooting Queen is practicing her ninja skills. Double 07 Just brought that out. So the second aspect, What's the finished position Overhead? With the Olympic lifting, I'm taught armpit forward and I do armpit forward. What's really happening to shoulder this rotation of actual rotation? This torque of extra rotation. Okay, what about bench pressing? Carl? You look like a big bench press, sir. What did they tell you to do? What Louis Simmons site to do? Break the bar? That's right. So when you break the bar, what's really happening with shoulder extra rotation as I screw my feet into the ground like Mark Bell, the best powerful one Best policies on Planet. This is his. These were his cues. Before he lifts £1200 he's like the first thing I do is I squeeze my but as hard as I can, that sounds like prioritizing the trunk. Like then I pretend like my feet are on plates, and I try to screw my hips into the ground through the plates. What's he really doing is creating torgyan and stability through the trunk. Now, how does the car turn on? That's right, it turns on but will notice that people are so dysfunctional now. So dis normal that they had to push a button because they can't do that anymore. How does the screw screw in or light bulb? This is like the DaVinci code. When you start seeing the goddess everywhere, like in the Starbucks Cup, has the goddess to It's a conspiracy. Well, extra rotation is the same concept. In addition, guys, so concept we call the tunnel. When I start any movement, I know that it initiates with a start position and it finishes with Wait for it a finish position. And our hypothesis is this. If you can express good organization and full capacity to have your body in the best position possible in the start position and full capacity for the finished position in this arm this way in this way, then you're not gonna have any problems in the middle because you have enough capacity. Start from one end and go to the other end. You following me? So do most people have a start walking position problem? No. Where is there a problem when they walk the finished position? So what position do people need to work on to improve walking, Running the finish position? Well, this becomes we call this the tunnel because we know that once you're under load or once you're underway, it's difficult to reclaim a good position. We know this because we watched the best athletes in the world. When they see someone squatting and needs come in, you can't get your knees out. So when RG three jumped on, his knees came in, he didn't put his knees out. Jump. He had to wait until he was done before his needs to come out. So if he loves his position at the start, then the finish is not gonna be good either. That makes sense. Have to enter this tunnel, organized and exit the tunnel organized, especially in movement. So this ends up being what we call Mobile one. This means this start position piece is Can you get into the good start position? Yes. No. And if you can't, this is a problem. One of the nice things about our template is that in our gym, in our cross a gym, we expose athletes to a full palette of movements. Like every good strength in addition program should we're exposing it to all the things that human beings should dio. So Chris could go for a second. Okay, Don't do a pistol. Just get into a bomb position of a pistol for me, would you? So this pistol position his arches and collapses, it hit. He can get into this. Well, turns out this is an expression of full ankle range of motion. There is not. Anything else in the world. Sort of requires more ankle range emotion than this complex thing called shooting the duck on roller skates. Remember this at the roller rink in the seventies? My dating myself? No. OK, it's fine. It's fine. Okay, so this means he's got full Anchorage emotion for me. If he can't do this. I know we have a problem. Yes. No death. We see you for second games. Feet were straighten. These were out when he got up. Excellent. Go ahead and just don't do a pistol. Just getting to the bottom position of that pistol force, would you? That Holy on, what happens if you don't? For that's it. Uh, now we're starting to see the relationship is that he doesn't have a start position problem at all. We're starting to see a finished position problem. What's so nice about our template is that if you're engaged in the basic tenets of strength conditioning, it's like a formal language of human being. Ah, formal movement, language of being a human. It's like classical ballet but expressed as movement that you should do every day. And what we're seeing is I suddenly don't have to memorize any of these ranges of motion. I need to ask myself, Can I get into this position now? This is pretty extreme, right? But what's not extreme is Can you squat your feet together for me? Oh, you should sit down there. Let's pretend like we're in Thailand having dinner. You and I go ahead. How's it going? This is great or I'm in the woods taking apu thes things. This is expression of the full angle range of motion. We see a join us in Thailand. Ah, heels come off the ground. So even if you couldn't even relate to doing a squat with your one foot. You should be re able to relate to this position. Can I express full range of motion in my ankles? Yes. No. Can I express full range of motion in my knees? Yes. No, in my hips. Yes, no. Right into the tissues between Because this is a passive, relaxed, easy position and some suddenly we found something that we can work on. And this is the mechanism for why we see so much of the compensation. Remember, over tension can often lead to that open circuit as he solves that problem in the ankle. Ah, his body goes around it because it's a bad adaptation. His body is always gonna create a work around for him so that he can continue to move through the environment no matter what, Even if it means it burns his knees or burns is back in the process.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Anterior Compartment Smash
Ball Tack and Floss
Banded Heel Cord Anterior Bias
Banded Heel Cord Posterior Bias
Banded Hip
Couch Stretch
External Rotation Shoulder Smash
Hip Capsule External Rotation
Jill Miller Eccentric Diaphragm Stretch
KStar Revised Reading List
MobilityWOD_Principles
Mobility Rx Rules
Overhead Rib Mobilization
Plantar Surface Mobilization
Posterior Chain Floss
Sink Mobilization
T-Spine Smash

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