5 Stuart McGill Assessing Movement Part Two Transcript

STUART McGILL
Assessing Movement: A Contrast in Approaches, Part Two of Three

This transcript has been edited for smoother reading. Editorial decisions were made to retain Stuart’s meaning while
converting the live lecture format to text—Stuart has not reviewed this transcript for accuracy.
For more information on this workshop DVD, please visit
movementlectures.com, backfitpro.com or otpbooks.com.
Thomas Kuhn introduced the idea of a paradigm as a set of beliefs shared by scientists that are essential for inquiry
permitting evaluation and evolution. He noted the essential tension required to promote scientific growth and ultimately
convergence on the truth. He compared the process to the evolution of species. Most quantifying tests of human move-
ment were born from an empirical process. The science was developed first, and then the tests evolved.
Insulin is an example. It came from the laboratory. There were only one or two experiments required after that and
things haven’t changed for 100 years. It’s been a wonderful medical breakthrough. There are many other wonderful medi-
cal discoveries that were simply from a clinical impression. A brilliant clinician threw it out there, but science tested it after
that.
Both are perfectly legitimate approaches. But the second approach is what has happened with the FMS. Gray threw
it out there, so naturally the scientific process came after the fact. Students will show me a blog or Facebook post: “McGill
is throwing another dagger.” This has nothing to do with throwing daggers. It’s how science plays out and how medicine
evolves.
In terms of injury theory, there are two elements to consider. We can either look at personal factors and the exposure,
or we can look at load tolerance of an individual and the magnitude of applied load. Either way works, but realize that
exposure to each one of these relationships that Gray pointed out—nutrition, sleep, movement—is U-shaped. Too much
or too little of any of those will make you sick.
1—Stuart McGill—Assessing Movement: A Contrast in Approaches DVD transcript, Part Two of Three
For more information on this workshop DVD, please visit movementlectures.com, backfitpro.com or otpbooks.com.
In other words, health is found at the opti-
mum. So where is the optimum for injury preven-
tion? Where is the optimum for movement health?
Injury pathways include multi-factorial, non-linear
variables. Some add and some multiply. It’s compli-
cated, but the risk of injury is specific to a specific
population.
Perhaps the biggest injury risk for an older
person is falling. Does shoulder asymmetry re-
ally matter to them? Another characteristic injury
mechanism of a specific population is ‘rower’s dis-
ease,’ a herniated disc through the mechanism of
repeated loaded bending, particularly early in the
morning.
Some people are generalists and others are
specialists, so let’s extend the logic. Could it be a
specialist like a marathoner will do better with a specific test? Could it be a general test will be better for a generalist? Does
a deep squat or external hip rotation matter more to a golfer?
Specific injuries and specific demands have been documented by different independent laboratories. Myers and
Hewett at Cincinnati and Powers at USC are all following this scientific process.
As you look at movement, ask questions. Can you
see an injury mechanism? Can you predict the injury?
Would you need a specific or a general movement as-
sessment? Might you even theoretically pass the FMS?
Specifically, would you coach a movement or would
you coach a corrective exercise at this point? What else
would you need to know?
Our priority is to learn the injury mechanisms and
then to observe the movement. The demand on that
person will shape the program design, but how do we
know whether it will lead to tissue injury or adaptation?
Some tasks don’t lend themselves to good movement.
Injury risk could perhaps be dominated by exposure,
nutrition or lack of rest.
I often speak in terms of injury theory, but consider the art and science of injury avoidance. Load is applied—no
question—and tissues weaken. It’s a biological fact, but rest allows adaptation. Hopefully, you’ve optimized it, so the tissue
tolerance ends up at a level higher than what you started with. But like all theory, will it survive a challenge?
Over my career, we’ve seen two injuries in our clinic and laboratory when I had full instrumentation working. The
first one was with a powerlifter lifting a reasonably competitive load, several hundred pounds, and one was unfortunately
very recently with one of our firefighters.
We used video fluoroscopy to view the spine move in a powerlifter lifting somewhere around 640 pounds. We
watched as his L2 and L3 buckled. It wasn’t a compression injury or a shear. It was actually instability. We hypothesized at
the time that the mechanism was a momentary lapse of motor control. It was an aberrant event.
The second was a firefighter. We had him doing 25 repetition blocks of breaching a door and advancing a fire hose,
when he ruptured his Achilles tendon. We recognized that the motion was different even before the firefighter moved, so
we went back and looked at the previous trial. We found eccentric contractions—an injury mechanism for tendon rup-
ture—at a point in the return phase.
We believe the injury occurred there, so it’s noteworthy that the increased frontal plane moment, which was mea-
sured at the ankle in the return phase before, is a known risk factor for an Achilles tendon rupture. This was theory. Yet the
two times we’ve serendipitously observed injury, they were associated with an aberrant one-time movement flaw.
Think of the times you’ve been hurt. Did you break form? Was it a hardware mechanism or a software mechanism?
This distinction and causation is important because it directs the intervention. Is there a mechanism we can do something
about?
A person might have poor pelvic control. Well, you could do something about that. If the link is random, you have
no guidance for the intervention. If the link is simply an associate, then once again we still don’t know what the true in-
tervention will be. The usefulness of the assessment is extended if the mechanism is revealed.
There is a lot of common ground between Cook and McGill, but there are also contrasts. I’m going to quote the late
Phil Greenman, “People are down on what they’re not up on.” I reflect back and I’ve been guilty of that at times.
I don’t know how different Gray and I are from a clinical perspective. Every patient referred to me has a back con-
cern. Gray probably sees a wider variety of patients. In order to see me, a patient needs to have already seen about 10 differ-
ent clinicians. Either the patient was made worse or the clinician failed. I’m seeing a select bunch—other people’s failures.
In terms of science, I run a very large scientific enterprise, and that’s a difference. I don’t imagine our consulting is
very different. Considering home base, he’s clinical and we have a clinic. I only see two patients a week, one day a week. I
see one patient for three hours in the morning on Wednesday, and three hours in the afternoon and that’s it. They’ve flown
in from somewhere. I don’t see local people.
With all of that said, I do have some disagreements. Let’s lay those on the table and see where we can go.
• Some people call the FMS the gold standard. I don’t agree. It predicts injury in individuals. From data I showed
this morning in some sub-groups, we can start to see evidence. For a general injury, that’s a hard case at this time.
• Can the FMS properly guide resets to movement dysfunction? It may, but later I’m going to show you a thought
process I hope you can grow with.
• Does it constitute a green light to go ahead with training at speed and load? Let’s test that one.
• Can dysfunction be reliably detected with only a simple movement test? Can that dysfunction can be corrected
with exercise?
Hold my feet to the fire and maybe you’ll understand a little bit why I think the way I do.
Let’s start with a question you may have heard before: Is it ever all right to lose the deep squat?
I’m going to argue now that the deep squat is primarily governed by genetics. Shallow hip sockets are genetic and
predispose hip dysplasia, but they also facilitate a deep squat. The highest rate of hip dysplasia in the world is in Poland.
It may not surprise you that the great Olympic lifters
come from Poland, Bulgaria and the Ukraine. Hip sur-
geons call it the Dalmatian hip.
They sure don’t come from Scotland because if
you look at the Celtic populations, they have very deep
hip sockets. While a great advantage for walking, stand-
ing and rotational power, deep hip sockets are terrible at
producing power at the bottom of the deep squat. Don’t
misquote me by saying, ‘Oh, you’re a Scot so you can’t
lift off the ground.’
A recent journal article discussed the roof of the
acetabulum and femoral impingement in yoga. The
highest rates are among the Celts and the French popu-
lations.
Years ago when I was called as an expert witness on two different murder cases, one of my scientific colleagues was a
forensic anthropologist. She was an expert in identifying the origin of the body without hair or skin, for example if it had
all been burned off. She could observe features of the shoulders, the spine or the hips and know where from in the world
the individual came. I would look at the same images and my eye went immediately to function.
If you look at that hip on the left, it will
not play in the NBA that’s dominated by a lateral
shuffle. That hip won’t lateral shuffle. It might be
a sagittal-plane mover. Look where I’ve aligned the
femoral condyle at the knee here and the variation.
This person may very well be able to squat wide
and get deep as a powerlifter. The Sumo squat style
might perfectly fit that person, but it will kill the
person on the left. That person is going to have an
awfully ugly squat.
Let’s align the pelvic bowls and you’ll see the
acetabulums. They’re arranged to squat deep and
allow the rotation out the front, but I can prob-
ably tell you that person will not be an Olympic
sprinter where the power is required out the extensor range. We can see in the sagittal plane, as well as a much shallower
hip socket.
There was a paper I read on the airplane coming here. I think it was in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research or maybe
it was Bone and Joint Surgery, documenting how the roof of the acetabulum, common in the Celts and the French popula-
tions, now have the highest rate of femoral impingement following yoga.
In many cases, the failure of an individual to deep squat cannot be corrected. Because I’m this back pain geek, I’ve
worked with different NFL teams where 35% of a football team has back pain. I see the trainer and find the mechanism
every time. They insist every player on that team does power cleans off the floor.
I do a quick little orthopedic test. You’d be amazed that the 35%, all with back pain, weren’t qualified to pick that
heavy bar off the floor. All they had to do was pull off of blocks and the whole injury mechanism would have been avoided.
They still play in the NFL, by the way. That little reference there on femoral acetabular impingement in the NFL is really
an anatomical concern.
In this example we needed knowledge of anatomy to design an exercise program. So the argument becomes, how
much information do you need and when does it become redundant to design a program? Is it the FMS seven? Is it some-
thing else?
Let me perform a little exercise in logic by presenting some real cases.
Let’s take an athlete who has no pain and scores a ‘19’ through to a ‘21.’ Then, the athlete sits on a chair for 15
minutes and gets back pain. I just found the pain provocateur. The person was in pain; it just wasn’t brought out in a
10-minute test. I might watch the athlete run and cut on a football field. There’s no pain on any test I can give in the office
or the clinic, but I can take the person out on the field and we’ll quickly find the pain mechanism. It might be deadlifting
700 pounds. Who knows?
What I do that’s different is to probe motions,
postures and loads, and I trigger the levels of dysfunc-
tion. Here’s someone who can pass a FMS. I’ll put a bare
Olympic bar, an 18-kilo bar, on the person’s back and ask
to see the ‘midnight move.’
In 20 seconds now I’ve found a unique disc pain
provocateur. The person might pass an FMS. We might
test all of this low level stuff, but we put 18 kilos on and
find pain. This is a person who picks 800 pounds off the
ground, but I found the pain mechanism using 18 kilos. I
found flexion intolerance with pain. I do these other tests
because most often that’s how I’ll find your pain.
I’ve been mocked by some people on the internet
for my caution. You don’t always start with mobility.
Maybe the patient has a neural sensitivity. If we continue mobilizing it, we increase the neural sensitivity. The
person’s pain and dysfunction won’t go away. Let it settle and let the nerves tell the truth. In those cases, I might opt for
stability first.
Take a patient whose sacroiliac joints have locked up at the end range of motion. There’s no pain, but ask the person
to walk in the neutral zone and you hear, “Oh yeah, I’ve got pain.” I get in position and ask him to push my fingers out.
“Great doc, you’re amazing! You just took my pain away.” “No I didn’t. I stabilized you first.”
Or, “Let’s bend a little bit.” Pain again. We’ve locked the sacroiliac joints and made them stable. There’s no pain at
the end range of motion. It was the neutral-zone movement pathology.
I’m always dealing with trade-offs—I immediately think of the annulus. I wouldn’t be lying if I said I believe our lab
has created more disc herniations than any other lab in the world. I’ve torn them and ruptured them in just about every
way you can—thousands of them. The more you keep a spine flexible, the easier it will rupture. Too much flexion with a
dynamic disc and there goes the disc popping out.
As we allow the spine to have more mobility, the annulus becomes softer and softer. It will push out and herniate
even sooner the next time. If that’s been the injury history and you want a resilient disc, let it settle, gristle and toughen.
Use the hip hinge. Stop mobilizing it and repeated episodes will reduce.
Do you see this idea of a trade-off all the
time? What you gain on one, you lose on another.
Would you correct this movement? If so, what
would you do for guidance? If your thought de-
faulted to weak gluteals, you’re going to be very
disappointed with the outcome.
Now, for some self-criticism. It’s very diffi-
cult to teach students the way we operate. It’s very
Maitland-like. We test clinical hypotheses. We’re
probing the person and our assessment is living.
The next test we do is based on the previous one. It
is the opposite of a standard operating procedure,
but I follow guidelines. Shirley Sahrmann has the
same problem. It’s difficult. It’s a logic you follow
rather than a set 1-2-3.
The great advantage of Cook’s approach is it’s very systematic. It helps people, such as a junior person. It’s seven tests.
It’s very light. It’s wonderful.
These are our primary differences. I have to see
the movement. When patients come in the clinic, I’m
watching them sitting in the waiting room because
they sit into their pain or pathology 90% of the time.
The flexion-intolerant person sits in the waiting
room differently than the extension-intolerant person.
It’s evident in how they get out of a chair. It’s no won-
der they’re in pain. After that, I need an idea of the
demand or the exposure.
I don’t do general assessments, but people think
I measure endurance in everybody. Absolute non-
sense. I might be doing balance training, strengthen-
ing or neural priming. At the end of the day, I have to
encode a movement pattern.
That’s where Cook and McGill align. I have to encode and displace that old pattern, but the ultimate level of func-
tion I have to build depends on the demands analysis. There are a couple of tools that help. Sometimes the very clear direc-
tive of a standard operating procedure is absolutely the way to go, but at other times we might need a bit more corrective
exercise for direction. You’re going to have to decide what’s best for you.
Can you turn a MMA fighter into a sprinter? I’ve talked about the hip structure and I hope you don’t train your
MMA fighters by sprinting. There is a way to build that powerful endurance. Power endurance, that’s almost an oxymoron.
Do you know of a linebacker who can hit a long golf ball? I don’t, and would never recommend one to try it. They’re
two entirely different athleticisms.
The spine anatomy that’s required to survive high loads is a limacon shape. If you twist that spine and bend it
around, it breaks. Bend a thick branch and it breaks a lot sooner than a thinner branch.
Do you want to play golf and survive? Have a more slender spine—much less stress. Have an ovoid-shaped spine.
With all of the great doctors in the world, and
as I said, patients are going to see 10 or so before they
ever see me, why did they get to me? I continually ask
that and it’s a very interesting question. The reason:
The problems of 50% of them or more have been ex-
acerbated or caused by the clinicians.
Maybe hamstrings were stretched when the prob-
lem was really tight nerves. The clinicians were guided
by the wrong compass. They didn’t properly interpret
the signs and the corrective exercises given were not
appropriate. Don’t misinterpret me here. I should say
what I’m going to do, not what I’m not going to do.
The great trainers and coaches are far ahead of
the scientists. Our testing of principles, the innovations
of a lot of coaches, is where we make our little discoveries. Only we find they were previously discovered 200 years ago or
were in a martial arts system 2,000 years ago.
We’re back to Dr. Steven Rose’s quote—Scientists and clinicians need one another.
Let’s look at a real case study of a golfer. He per-
formed the FMS and the SFMA and found movement
asymmetries, flaws, guided corrections. At the end of
the day, golf still hurt him. Maybe he was not with a
competent clinician, but we should wonder why he’s
still in pain and perform provocation tests. I think
Gray would agree with me in this case. With this par-
ticular person, it was a combination of twisting with
speed and pulsing load at the time of hitting the golf
ball…not torsion.
The golfer was very relaxed, but there was a little
bit of a pulse at the time the club hit the ball—he was
deviated. We aligned him to take away the pain mech-
anism, so we coached the movement.
There were no real corrective exercises. I can elaborate on exercises we used to coach the movement, but we were also
always concerned about what that person did the remainder of the day. That is a huge factor—treating your back better
for the other 23 hours, including sleep. Training capacity is gained by paying attention to the details of the rest of the day.
I don’t think there’s a difference there. I think Gray and I are right in tune. I use checklists, but my checklists are
different. I’m a classically trained biomechanist, so when I look at a movement, that dictates my checklist items for move-
ment optimality.
I want to see the manipulation of the moment of inertia of a leg. I want to see someone who’s moving quickly reduce
the moment of inertia. If I can just reduce the moment of inertia instead of creating more torque at the hip, I get much
more speed through a small technique change.
I look for energy leaks, which are strong concentric contractions causing unwanted eccentric contraction at weaker
joints. People who can’t jump very high—they’re just leaking energy.
I might look at principles that govern mus-
cle, soft tissue and nerve function. If you do an
endurance test—a Biering-Sorensen endurance
test—and you stretch the nerves by having your
head down, you will lose 20% to 30% of your en-
durance. The stretched nerve doesn’t carry electric-
ity as well. Posture matters.
When developing this idea of an assessment,
you must know the person. Is the pattern ideal?
Is the pattern ideal for him or is the pattern ideal
for you? This case is interesting because his per-
formance comes from tuned stiffness. An engineer
designed the tuned stiffness at his ankles. Change
that stiffness and lose optimal speed.
How many of you use stretching as a tool to increase range of motion? How many of you are wise enough to use
stretching to tune stiffness or do you just stretch it all the way? Do you do foot ricochets to stiffen the foot to store and
recover elastic energy? Or do you say, ’I need more movement. Stretching is my tool. I am going to stretch it all the way’…
ruining athleticism. Remember, you’re tuning a race car.
Mechanisms matter. Let’s evaluate an older
marathoner. He’s run races for 30 years. Would we
test his blood pressure? You can almost be sure the
plumbing side of his system is pretty fit. It is the
electrical system that is at risk. The sinus node is at
a much greater risk of being worn out.
Selecting the right screen to match the per-
son matters. It’s all about context, which is why I
would choose a different screen for a grandmother
than I would a great athlete. The population is
non-homogeneous. Can you take a Saint Bernard
to the Greyhound track and expect to win? They’re
two different animals.
Gray has guided us by providing prescribed
metrics. There’s absolutely a time and a place for
that, but I start less formally and I simply ask two
questions to start my initial screen.
“Are you fit or not?” and “Do you move well or
not?” That’s it.
I devise a screen based on the demands re-
quired and tuned to the individual. I would screen
for the biggest risk in the grandmother, which is
probably the risk of falling. I might screen hip
power—the ability to get her foot out in front of
her quickly to arrest a fall. That’s what matters.
What would I do for an unfit person who
moves poorly? They need movement coaching. I’d
interview them, “What are your goals?” If they say, “I want to play golf ” or something similar, I respond, “That’s probably
not the first goal. Let’s reset the goal and revisit golf later.”
I might do a movement assessment, start with posture and watch people walk or test stability and mobility. I don’t
know my choice until I have the context for the demand. If they have pain, I might provoke that. I also want to know the
personality.
At the University when we bring in a cohort of diabetics, I see how hard our clinicians have to work to motivate
them to move. Then the next group comes in—our breast cancer survivors. They don’t need motivation to move. They are
Type A. It is a fascinating comparison.
The psychological profile is an amazing factor. We have a decision to make: Are we going to have to motivate this
person to move or are we going to have to hold them back because of their movement pathology.
“Every day, I’ve got to do an hour on the treadmill. Otherwise, I’m a nervous wreck.” We all know that person.
I perform this assessment in several layers and it can’t be done in 10 minutes. It takes me three hours to assess just
the back. Then I have to design a program. This is very back-centric, but it’s adaptable.
As I said, Gray and I agree on goals. I work diligently at the beginning to remove the cause, and Gray is no different.
I begin establishing default movement patterns, both motor and movement, and develop position awareness and similar
factors. Finally, we progress to strength and power.
Let’s take the polar opposite of our unfit per-
son—someone who is fit and moving well. Would
I treat this person the same way? Absolutely not.
We flip the entire assessment. To quote Vince
Lombardi, “Training is to reset the barometer of
the human will,” but in this case, I have the green
light.
A mixed martial artist is a great example. I
need to know the demand, so I will watch the last
two contests. I’m going to catalogue how much
time he was on his back in heavy isometric control
and how many explosive maneuvers he did to get
back on his feet.
For basketball players, I want to know how
many lateral shuffles or similar movements they did, and at what speed. I catalogue it all. I know the demands. These are
pencil and paper tests. I just get a clipboard, watch and catalogue it all.
I test their capabilities. If lateral shuffling is needed, I want to test it and I want to observe them. Are they all over
the place on their court, or do they sharply and skillfully lock it down? Do they have a special risk of injury? In my world,
they always have a back concern, so I’ve got to take care of that, but at this point it’s all pencil and paper. What do they
need to do and what do they currently have?
Guess what I train? The difference. I identify the
goals, assess the client and now train the difference.
That’s how I do it.
Put a weightlifter in front of me and I will look
very carefully at shoulder impingement. I will look at
the goblet squat. I’m going to look at back squats and
front squats, and sort this out with pencil and paper.
To me a deep squat is all about speed and load
for the Olympic weightlifter. The beautiful thing about
the snatch is that you have to pull a load and then be
crazy enough to completely relax. If you have residual
stiffness in your body, you’re not going to be relaxed
enough to get under it and catch that bar. Complete
relaxation is required. That’s the gift of the Olympic lift.
How do I screen for that relaxation? I put a
box at nipple height in front of the weightlifter. I
want to see them jump on the box.
The first time, I want them to pound it. I
want to see how quickly they turn the muscles on
and off. The great weightlifters of the world relax
their muscles about five times faster than the av-
erage person. That rate of relaxation is how they
catch the bar. The next time they jump up on the
box, I don’t want to hear it. I’m getting an idea of
their neurological mechanisms, how they get into
deep squat, and the confirmation of the spine. Is it
ready to receive the bar?
That is a living assessment. Would I do it on a
grandmother? No. But with an Olympic lifter, I need to go to that level. I watch them play in the sport. If I’m missing
something, I watch them lift and play.
Don’t be mesmerized by body type. You’ll get fooled about which are the great athletes.
If people fail any of my tests, I don’t tell them to do the test until they’re successful. In another case, I might circum-
vent all corrective exercise.
How do I find and tune that individual person’s patterns? Go once again to the pencil and paper. My wife is a sports
psychologist, and many years ago she educated me on how athletes visualize perfect movement. I have worked with some
great athletes who couldn’t seem to get the pattern. The movement they were imaging in their brains was flawed and
therefore impossible.
I needed a way to pull that perfect movement they were trying to execute out of their brains, so again, out came the
pencil and paper. “Draw a stick figure for me. Where are your joint motions? Where is your center of mass? How are you
projecting that force through the linkage? Is it in your base of support or are you throwing yourself off balance? If you’re
lifting a bar, show me the trajectory.”
Sometimes it was absolutely perfect.
It is very cultural. If you go to highly trained mixed martial artists, they’ll give you a medical textbook description
because that’s how they’re trained at the high level. Ask a basketball player, “How do you dunk a basketball?” “I don’t
know. I woke up in the 10th grade and I could do it,” might be the answer.
I can then ask them to explain what they’re thinking about. “Do you stiffen your core and allow the hip to explode
to create that one-two step and fly off the top of the key? Can you explain that to me?” It’s quite difficult sometimes—it’s
very sport-cultural, and training differs greatly.
After this Q and A session, I have an idea of what the athlete is thinking. I ask, “Would you draw me the muscles?
What joint needs to be stiffened?” If it’s a football player who needs to plant a foot and cut, we need to stop specific energy
leaks to get a quick cut. Without core stiffness, there’s
no way to express athleticism out the distal side of the
ball and socket joint.
I get into their heads and find out why they have
perturbed movement patterns. I go right back to the
movement principles and once again to my check-
list. I’m looking for biomechanical movement flaws. I
know what’s in their heads and what they’re trying to
execute. I ask myself, where did that corruptive pattern
come from?
If there are anatomical reasons for the pattern,
there’s not too much I can do except change their style
and try to avoid it.
Possibly it’s environmental or experiential or maybe they were deprived of the normal neurodevelopmental sequence
Gray referenced earlier. Is it trauma? Is it a learned behavior?
We learned something interesting in the
studies of police officers. When we did a gait analy-
sis, they all had a particular walk. You know why?
They wear a duty belt at work. But when that belt
comes off, they still have the walk.
I might assess the basic patterns—squat,
lunge, lift, pull and push. I have a rubric and scor-
ing criteria for each pattern.
My colleagues David Frost and Tyson
Beach—they are also my former students and are
now professors at the University of Toronto—and
I compiled those guidelines.
If an athlete already owns a world record, and
has a goofy gait pattern or really interesting move-
ment flaws, I’m not going to touch them. If they are elite, I leave them alone. They’re interesting people and they never
test well. A very elite fighter is beaten up and won’t test well. Everything hurts—the legacy of fighting is awful.
There are certain movements that tall people aren’t able to do well. If you get them to squat, their knees project out
to the sides. Some of the greatest powerlifters are heavy individuals with terrible movement. But they win at the sport.
Craig Liebenson has just edited a book on developing junior athletes. I contributed the weightlifting chapter, from
which I’ll now borrow.
In the scoring system customized for developing a junior weightlifter, everybody starts with 10 points and for each
movement flaw we take away one point. You’ve got to understand weightlifting to do this properly. No one gets more load
on the bar until they’re back up to a ‘10.’ As they get a bit older, we might go to ‘9.5’ before we allow more weight. That’s
just one example of our use of scoring criteria.
The polar opposite is the aging athlete. This is Pavel Tsatsouline’s father, who owns the American record for deadlifting
for men over 75 years of age. How is his assessment done? Before and after he performs one or two lifts, restore. That
75-year-old back is a different animal. Train it differently if you’re going to set a world record.
In summary, the real world is chaotic. I believe
the tests need to be conducive to an element of chaos.
When we add a little bit of fatigue and a little bit of
danger, people move differently. I want to know what
their reactions are.
There’s no question simple movement matters,
but I need to know the reaction under speed, load, dan-
ger and fatigue. I insist on good coaching, and that the
person understands the movement objectives.
Those of you who have taken courses with me be-
fore know I always finish every course with one state-
ment—
Don’t follow a guru.
Learn all of the systems you can and retain what works for you.
The FMS provides a wonderful introduction into all of this. Its structure will guide you. If you have limited experi-
ence, you will thrive under that structure. In all of this, I hope you will see that there is a time for a standard operating
procedure, but also that an assessment has to be a living entity.

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STUART McGILL

Assessing Movement: A Contrast in Approaches, Part Two of Three

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