BRETT JONES
Corrective Exercise Essentials
Within our corrective exercise programming,
there are four exercise essentials that are go-tos
for us. These are where we need to take people to
cement movement-pattern changes, and where we
feel a lot of corrective programs could use some
improvement.
Now, there are only four corrective exercise
essentials. There is a great quote, “In the beginner’s
mind, there are many options. In the expert’s mind,
there are few.”
These are the four things that are essential
within a corrective exercise program. You don’t
need 1,000 corrective exercise drills. You need
corrective exercise drills and their variations that
allow you to quickly target someone’s dysfunctional
or restricted movement pattern and help improve
that movement pattern.
You don’t need to do any corrective exercise that
hasn’t shown improvement of a person’s restrictions
or asymmetries. You might have the world’s favorite
corrective exercise, but it’s not going to work for
everybody. You have to be willing to be adaptable
and give exercises that are most effective for the
individual with whom you’re working.
Let’s get started.
The first corrective exercise essential is chopping
and lifting. Chopping and lifting is typically
performed in either tall-kneeling with both knees
down, or half kneeling with one knee down and one
knee up.
The difference is that tall kneeling is used in
symmetrical stance issues—deep squat, trunk
stability push-up or when someone brings a pair
of ‘1s’ to a pattern like the active straight-leg raise.
We’re going to need to first balance the pelvis
symmetrically before we go to an asymmetrical
correction like the half-kneeling chop or lift.
Half-kneeling is used in asymmetrical pattern
issues—active straight-leg raise, shoulder mobility,
rotary stability or the inline lunge hurdle step.
Those are the exercises we go to for a half-kneeling
correction or those movement patterns when we’re
looking at using a half-kneeling position.
~1~
This is transcript of Brett Jones’ Corrective Exercise Essentials audio lecture. If you’ve received this material,
do not own the audio lecture and would like to learn about it, visit www.movementlectures.com.
For more from Brett, visit him at appliedstrength.blogspot.com.
Where most of chopping, lifting, halos, presses
or any number of things that can be done in half-
kneeling usually go wrong is in the setup. I might
spend 15 minutes getting someone into a perfect
half-kneeling position with great posture and a light
front foot standing on the one knee that’s down.
This is important.
Half-kneeling is just like single-leg stance. You’re
standing on the leg that’s on the ground or the knee
that’s on the ground. The other foot is a kickstand.
It should bear very little weight so we’re not leaning
forward on the front foot. The front foot is actually
very light.
If I put an egg underneath your front foot, I’d still
be able to have a sunny-side-up egg and wouldn’t be
forced to pick shells from my omelet. I want that
front foot light and I want you standing on the back
knee. We want a straight line from the ear to the
shoulder to the hip to the knee.
I’m actually going to tell you to point your toes
away, because once you lock yourself between your
big toe and your knee, you can engage your quad
and push down into the ground with your foot.
This is not what I’m trying to accomplish in half-
kneeling.
Half-kneeling is about single-leg stance in a half-
kneeling variation that allows you to target reflexive
stability in that pattern. You can see this on our
functionalmovement.com website—you can pull up
videos of half kneeling on the FMS website. You can
see us coach it in Kettlebells from the Ground Up 2.
Really good half-kneeling posture and position
will get you more than just banging out 15 mindless
chops or 20 mindless lifts. Nail the posture of half-
kneeling—a straight line from the knee to the hip to
the shoulder to the ear. The pelvis is balanced both
front to back and side to side. The front foot is light.
You’re as narrow as you can be, so you’re challenged
at the edge of your abilities and still successful, and
not falling over.
You need to be challenged. If you’re not making
small mistakes while trying to hold half-kneeling,
you’re not getting the benefit of it.
 As stated, tall-kneeling is going to appear in
the deep squat, the trunk stability push-up or
symmetrically restricted dysfunctions.
Half-kneeling is going to appear in the active
straight-leg raise, shoulder mobility, rotary
stability, the inline lunge or the hurdle step. Any
asymmetrical stance activity is going to get half-
kneeling correction.
Don’t ignore tall-kneeling either. In Dynami:
Kettlebells from the Center, we take you through tall-
kneeling pressing. In Club Swinging Essentials, we
take you through using tall-kneeling to swinging
clubs as a club swinging posture. It’s really a great
way to chop your legs out from underneath and to
make sure you can’t use your quads and hip flexors
to hold you up. It can be very effective in helping to
change posture and pelvis position.
The second corrective exercise essential is
deadlifting. I know there are segments who feel the
deadlift is just horrible and dangerous. It’s because
they don’t know how to do it. This sounds very
arrogant and harsh, but I’ve taught enough people
to deadlift to know that proper deadlifting is like a
Big Foot sighting. It’s often reported, but very rarely
seen.
We pattern the deadlift, putting a stick on the
back to make sure we get a great neutral spine and
that the hip hinge is truly a hip hinge. It doesn’t
include lumbar movement or spinal movement.
Deadlifting variations can be everything from
patterning a deadlift with a stick on the back or
using the Gray Cook or Lifeline bands to load
different aspects of the pattern. It can be single-leg
deadlifting. One of the most important variations
forgotten is to bring the weight up to the level the
person can control.
If you have to place a 10-pound dumbbell on a
12-inch box so Grandma Betty can pull a single-leg
deadlift through a very shortened range—the range
she is successful in but challenged by—that’s the
deadlifting variation you need to use for her.
Symmetrical stance deadlifting sets the
foundation for the hip hinge. Single-leg deadlifting
~2~
This is transcript of Brett Jones’ Corrective Exercise Essentials audio lecture. If you’ve received this material,
do not own the audio lecture and would like to learn about it, visit www.movementlectures.com.
For more from Brett, visit him at appliedstrength.blogspot.com.
is how we cement things like the active straigh- leg
raise, rotary stability and things of that nature.
Go after and learn your deadlifting variations.
Be able to teach and master these variations for your
clients. It’s an essential human movement pattern
we’ve ignored for too long. It’s not about being a
powerlifter. It’s not about pulling a max deadlift,
although I think most people should be deadlifting
much heavier than what they’re currently doing.
You have to own the pattern first, so work on your
deadlifting variations. They are a corrective exercise
essential, as well as just a great exercise essential.
The third corrective exercise essential is rolling.
Rolling comes to us from a variety of sources—from
developmental sequencing and the rolling infants
go through as they’re earning the stability to crawl
and walk.
There are different groups like Pavel Kolar’s
DNS, the PNF group, FMS and people like John
Brookfield and Gymnastic Au Naturale. There are
so many groups talking about crawling and rolling.
There is just too much talk to be ignored.
Within the FMS, we use a variety of rolling
patterns, like easy rolls, which are segmented upper-
and lower-body rolling patterns. We call them easy
rolls because when you do it right, it’s easy. Then we
have hard rolls, which involve maintaining a great
axis of rotation as you bring the opposing arm and
leg together, thus performing a rolling pattern.
It’s all about setting up fundamental stability
from the eyes and the neck. You don’t do these rolling
patterns in the presence of a mobility restriction. If
you can’t move your neck, rolling will literally give
you a ‘pain in the neck.’ Be sure mobility is clear
before you begin rolling patterns. These can be seen
on the functionalmovement.com website. These can
be seen in Secrets of Primitive Patterns with Gray
and Lee. This is really powerful stuff.
The fourth corrective exercise essential is
breathing. Breathing action of the diaphragm and
proper alignment of the rib cage over the pelvis is
essential to everything. Breathing is the beginning,
middle and end of everything we do.
 We watch not only that you can take a quality
breath, but also how your breath changes in different
postures, positions and exercises. If I place you in
half-kneeling and all of a sudden you gasp and hold
your breath for the next 15 seconds, I have a pretty
good idea that you’re not responding all that well
to the exercise. It has challenged you in such a way
that your response was to take a high chest breath
and hold it.
Trying to gain stability from the wrong places
and showing a reaction to that position or posture
is significant. We want you to keep your ability to
breathe. You don’t own a position or posture if you
can’t breathe.
The completion of a thoracic spine rotation is
not the force of ‘ugh’ and then quickly getting out of
the position. The end of a thoracic spine rotation is
to turn, get to your last point—your most successful
or greatest turn—stay there, and breathe. Give me
five breaths at the end of your range of motion.
Don’t get to the end of your range of motion and
just hop out of it quickly.
We look not only for evaluating breathing
through something like crocodile breathing, which
you can see on most of our Secrets DVds, and some
of our other materials, Evaluating and Correcting
Breathing with Crocodile Breath, and we also look
at breath in every posture, position and exercise. It
is truly the corrective exercise essential.
Your diaphragm is a huge and important muscle.
It has connections on the ribs. It forms the dome
between the thorax and the abdomen. It flows back
and attaches to the thoracic spine. It also flows all
the way down the spine and has attachments on L-1,
L-2 and L-3.
The diaphragm is split into a right and left
crus. It’s innervated by the left and right branches
of the phrenic nerve. Its ability to work with us in
breathing is a gateway between parasympathetic
and sympathetic.
Nasal breathing is also becoming something
everybody is talking about. If you look at Tai Chi,
Chi Kung, yoga, boxing and running, there are
just so many different groups talking about the
importance of nasal breathing.
~3~
This is transcript of Brett Jones’ Corrective Exercise Essentials audio lecture. If you’ve received this material,
do not own the audio lecture and would like to learn about it, visit www.movementlectures.com.
For more from Brett, visit him at appliedstrength.blogspot.com.
There is the Buteyko echo method of dealing
with asthma, a book called Close Your Mouth by
McKeown, and The Anatomy of Breathing. There
is just a ton of information out there—Pranayama
and Yoga. Read Iyengar’s Light on Yoga for some
information on Pranayama. There is a lot of
information available to us out there on breathing.
Our corrective exercise essentials are chopping
and lifting—talking about tall- and half-kneeling
postures and positions. Posture and position of
tall- and half-kneeling are more important than the
exercise.
Deadlifting variations include everything from
a symmetrical deadlift to using bands to kettlebells
to barbells to dumbbells to single-leg deadlifting.
Master your deadlifting variations.
Rolling—Looking at developmental sequencing,
segmental stability and activation, going from the
eyes and the neck down—is really essential stuff.
Breathing, diaphragmatic action and nasal
breathing—you’ll find tons of information to look
into here.
I’m going to cheat ahead and give you a fifth
corrective exercise essential, which is the getup or
the first couple stages of the getup. The stages that
lead to getting to the hand can be some of the most
powerful corrective exercise you give people.
Kettlebells From The Ground Up: Kalos Sthenos
and Kettlebells From The Ground Up 2: Advanced
Progressions give you all the information you will
ever need on the getup. You can also see those
breakdowns on functionalmovement.com.
Review these corrective exercise essentials. Be
honest with yourself. How are you at setting up the
posture and position for the half-kneeling halo?
How is your deadlift teaching and coaching? Do
you know how to look at and evaluate rolling? Are
you looking at and evaluating breathing patterns for
people? This is all essential work.
This has been Brett Jones talking to you about
corrective exercise essentials.
Thank you.