Gray Cook Movement book

(9 customer reviews)

Screening, assessing and improving movement can reduce injury risk and help people unlock their performance potential. In Movement, Gray Cook outlines his systematic approach for evaluating and improving movement quality so you can create better exercise and rehabilitation programs.

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Product Description

Functional Movement Systems: Functional movement screen, Movement assessments, Corrective exercise, Movement patterns, Movement screening

by Gray Cook
with Lee Burton, Kyle Kiesel, Greg Rose & Milo Bryant

The complete system you need to enhance movement and reduce injury risk

Click here to order the paperback edition from Amazon.

Clinicians, coaches and trainers all share the same goal: getting the human body to function at its peak with minimum risk of injury.

Yet, two major problems often hold these professions back from achieving this shared goal.

Problem #1: Not taking into account an individual’s quality of movement

Healthcare and fitness practitioners often neglect fundamental movement, paying too much attention to the surface view.

A surgeon, a physician and a physical therapist see problems through eyes biased by their training. One sees a surgical solution based on structure; one considers which medication to manage pain and inflammation, while the other looks for mechanical issues to rehabilitate.

Coaches and trainers, on the other hand, often focus on fitness and performance without first screening for movement dysfunctions that might cause movement compromises or predispositions to injury.

Across these professions, fundamental movement often isn’t brought into the conversation on the same level as other issues that are qualified and quantified in exercise and rehabilitation.

This leaves people open to risk of injury, pain and performance inefficiencies that could otherwise be avoided.

Problem #2: Not having a common language to communicate with each other

Coaches, trainers and clinicians have different skillsets, different areas of expertise, and different educational backgrounds. But because they treat the same clients, they must be able to effectively communicate with each other.

In the absence of a common language, these different professions often speak past each other to the detriment of the client.

If you’re a trainer, strength coach, physical therapist, or chiropractor whose clients trust to get them performing at their best, you need to have a system for evaluating and improving movement quality and a language to communicate with other professionals in.

In Movement, Gray outlines the movement system that is aimed at solving these problems. A system that is now being used across the world in NFL teams, NHL teams, the military, universities, and countless other clinics and training centers.

This system gives you a standard operating procedure and common language for movement-pattern screening, assessment and correction in fitness and rehabilitation. It will allow you to better identify potential risks and create better rehabilitation and exercise programs based on each individual’s unique movement profile.

“Exercise and rehabilitation time is valuable—too valuable not to use a system.
Gray Cook’s Movement uses a systematic approach to exercise and rehabilitation built on the fundamentals of authentic human movement.”

~ Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts

If you’ve ever wanted to:

  • understand why people get injured, and why their pain keeps returning
  • improve your patient’s recovery process
  • give people a strong foundation before loading them with weights
  • eliminate training mistakes that delay results
  • improve your client’s chances of making it through the athletic season without suffering a non-contact injury
  • restore the quality life in people who have suffered in pain for years due to movement problems
  • build more functional, longer lasting athletes
  • avoid frustrations and improve patient outcomes when working with other healthcare and fitness professionals by learning a standardized language to communicate in

… then Gray’s Functional Movement System outlined in Movement may be just what you need.

Movement is like the college course in the ‘missing piece’ of the performance and rehabilitation puzzle you never learned in school.

“Once a decade a book comes out that you will keep reading, rereading, and crowding with notes until it falls apart. Then you buy a new copy and enthusiastically start over.

In the 1990s it was Verkhoshansky and Siff’s Supertraining. In the 2000s McGill’s Ultimate Back. Enter the 2010s and Gray Cook’s Movement. It is a game-changer.”

~ Pavel Tsatsouline, author of Enter the Kettlebell!

“Gray Cook has the ability and charisma to reach any audience. A WhizKid PT, Gray has singlehandedly changed coaching in every professional sport.

Because of Gray, the Functional Movement Screen is now the gold standard screening tool in our industry.”

~ Michael Boyle, author of Advances in Functional Training

Topics Covered in Movement

Understanding Human Movement

You will learn how to use screening, testing and assessment to classify movement proficiency or deficiency. You’ll also learn the differences between the two systems, the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) and the Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA).

Screening Movement

Where in your intake process should you screen? Can you screen an injured client or athlete? Movement will show you where to place movement screening in your existing business model, and where your program structure might be improved.

Functional Movement Systems and Movement Patterns

What is the FMS? And how is it different from the SFMA? In Movement, you’ll learn about both the systems, and will finish with an appreciation of primitive and higher-level movement patterns.

The Functional Movement Screen (FMS)

You’ll learn in detail the seven basic screens that make up the FMS, including where to stand during screening, what to watch for during the movements and how to plan your modifications. You’ll get a description of each screen, the purpose of each, tips for testing, possible causes of issues and photographs showing how to score each test.

You’ll also learn how to modify the movement screen for special populations such as the morbidly obese, seniors and those with medical restrictions.

Analyzing Movements in Screens and Assessments

You’ll learn how to analyze the various test results. Using the tests of the Functional Movement Screen as the base, you’ll discover what mistakes most beginners make in screening, how to distinguish between stability and mobility problems, and how to determine asymmetries. Here you’ll also get your first introduction to reverse patterning (RP) and reactive neuromuscular training (RNT), two of the primary corrective tools of the Functional Movement Systems arsenal.

Understanding Corrective Strategies

What do you do with the resulting screen and assessment information? You’ll learn about the performance pyramid and how to use it to form corrective strategies. Understanding the differences between correct and corrective exercises, between challenging versus difficult, and having a selection of self-limiting exercises in your exercise menu will give you confidence as you assign and program exercises.

Developing Corrective Strategies

Now that you’ve discovered dysfunctional patterns in your clients, athletes and patients, learn how to develop the right corrective strategies with the help of the three primary categories of mobility, stability and movement-pattern retraining. You’ll get comparisons of conditioning and corrective exercise, movement prep and movement correction, skill training and corrective prioritization, and will understand when each is appropriate.

Building the Corrective Framework

You’ll get a six-item checklist for your corrective decisions. Even though every person’s movement is unique, with this framework, your corrective path will be clearer. You’ll also become familiar with the basic structure involving special considerations and populations that may make up part of your client or patient base.

Movement Pattern Corrections

Build on your knowledge of basic mobility and stability corrections and movement-pattern retraining. Using passive, active and assistive techniques, you’ll be able to help your clients, athletes and patients recover lost mobility. Learn about stability and motor control, transitional postures and how to use facilitation techniques such as reactive neuromuscular training to challenge newfound mobility.

Advanced Corrective Strategies

Learn how to make corrective exercise an experience. This is how corrective exercise actually works in the human body, and the thorough discussion found in this chapter will teach you how to create this for your clientele. Using PNF, RNT, reverse patterning, conscious loading, resisted and self-limiting exercises, you’ll grasp the concept of the manageable mistake zone, and you’ll be able to use these ideas and techniques to stand out in your crowded professional field.

SFMA Introduction and Top-Tier Tests

Learn about the top-tier assessments of the SFMA, including the overlying considerations of functional versus dysfunctional and painful versus non-painful, the overriding criteria of the SFMA system.

SFMA Assessment Breakout Descriptions and Flowcharts

The SFMA breakouts are covered in detail over 58 pages and 66 photographs inside Movement.

Introduction to Screening and Assessment

Understand the purpose of screening movement and learn how to recognize movement patterns in action.

“Gray’s premise is beautiful in its simplicity: Training movement can fix muscles, but training muscles rarely fixes movement. Since all of sport is movement, his 80/20 approach is then astounding in its effectiveness.

For the time invested, the FMS and its cousins are the best tools I’ve seen for producing bullet-proof athletes and pain-free non-athletes in record time.”

~ Tim Ferriss, author of the #1 NY Times bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek

Get Your Copy Today

If you’re looking for the missing puzzle piece to help protect your clients from future injury and to eliminate the roadblocks that hold them back from greater performance, you’ll find Gray Cook’s Functional Movement System as detailed inside the Movement book invaluable.

Inside you’ll discover a system that not only helps you screen and assess an individual’s movement quality, but also a system that helps you identify the corrective strategies they need to help protect from injury and to move better.

In addition to Movement, you’ll also get these exclusive On Target Publications bonuses—

  • Gray Cook: Movement Principles—a 7-page PDF transcript
  • Gray Cook: Reconsidering the Way We Look at Movement (a lecture given at the VCU School of Medicine)— 30-page PDF transcript (a $9.95 value)
  • Gray Cook: Reactive Neuromuscular Training—a 60-minute MP3 audio recording, accompanied by a 12-page PDF transcript and three PDF book excerpts

“Gray Cook has changed things. You might not know it, but things are different now. I’ve been in sports since LBJ was in office, and I’ve been wondering something for a long time: What’s wrong? Yep, that’s it. Why does this hurt when I do that? How come I can’t just do X? Gray has the answer in his new book, Movement.

“Right from the start, he tells me what I’ve been doing wrong for way too long: First move well, and then move often. His performance pyramid alone is worth the time and energy to read the book. But my favorite part of the text is idea of self-limiting activities.

“It’s not a cure-all section, but, for me, it was a blueprint to think about exercise in a whole new light: something that actually moves while working on the quality of movement. If you understand what I wrote, bless you. Otherwise, read the section!

“I keep expanding my ‘must have’ Library. Tommy Kono’s book? Check. Keys to Progress? Check. Boyle’s new book? Check. Cerutty on Training? Check. Power to the People and Return of the Kettlebell? Check and check. New Cook’s new book.

Push your bookends out a little wider. It’s a keeper.

~ Dan John, author of Never Let Go

Chapter List

Chapter 1–Introduction to Screening and Assessment
This introductory chapter builds the foundation you’ll need to fully understand the purpose of screening movement. You’ll learn the concept of movement patterns and how to recognize these patterns in action, as well as the history and primary goals of movement screening.

Chapter 2–Anatomical Science versus Functional Science
The next 16 pages expand on the differences between authentic movement and scientific anatomical function. The functional systems of muscles, joints and ligaments are covered, as are the fascial matrix, breathing and the neuromuscular network. Understanding movement deficiency and dysfunction and how these develop will illuminate your work, and clarify your explanations to your athletes, clients and patients.

Chapter 3–Understanding Movement
In Chapter 3, you’ll gain an appreciation of the natural laws of basic movement before specific, with an overview of how to use screening, testing and assessment to classify movement proficiency or deficiency. You’ll also get a summary of the differences between the two systems, the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) and the Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA).

Chapter 4–Movement Screening
Where in your intake process should you screen? Can you screen an injured client or athlete? This section will help you place movement screening in your existing business model, or it will show you where your program structure might be improved.

Chapter 5–Functional Movement Systems and Movement Patterns
This summary explains the differences between the two systems, the FMS for fitness professionals and strength coaches, and the SFMA for medical professionals. You’ll get a brief look at the systems, and finish with an appreciation of primitive and higher-level movement patterns.

Chapter 6–Functional Movement Screen Descriptions
The chapter used to cover the FMS will teach you the seven basic screens in detail, including where to stand, what to watch for during the movements and how to plan your modifications. You’ll get a description of each screen, the purpose of each, tips for testing, implications and photographs showing how to score each test.

Chapter 7–SFMA Introduction and Top-Tier Tests
The top-tier assessments of the SFMA are covered in these 26 pages, which contain a discussion of the overlying considerations of functional versus dysfunctional and painful versus non-painful, the overriding criteria of the SFMA system. The seven elements of the top-tier will direct you to the breakout tests found in Chapter 8.

Chapter 8–SFMA Assessment Breakout Descriptions and Flowcharts
Taking 58 pages and 66 photographs to cover the SFMA breakouts will serve to remind medical professionals of the individual assessments, and at the same time make fitness trainers and strength coaches aware of the tests used by professionals to whom they refer clients and athletes. The rationale for each of the breakout regions will pull the process together for you as it simplifies the overall approach.

Chapter 9–Analyzing the Movements in Screens and Assessments
Chapter 9 teaches how to analyze the various test results. Using the tests of the Functional Movement Screen as the base, you’ll learn what mistakes most beginners make in screening, how to distinguish between stability and mobility problems and how to determine asymmetries. Here you’ll get your first introduction to reverse patterning (RP) and reactive neuromuscular training (RNT), two of the primary corrective tools of the Functional Movement Systems arsenal.

Chapter 10–Understanding Corrective Strategies
This begins the wrap-up: What do you do with the resulting screen and assessment information? The 20 pages of Chapter 10 comprise the performance pyramid and how to use it to form your corrective strategies. Understanding the differences between correct and corrective exercises, between challenging versus difficult, and having a selection of self-limiting exercises in your exercise menu will give you confidence as you assign and program exercises.

Chapter 11–Developing Corrective Strategies
Now that you’ve discovered dysfunctional patterns in your clients, athletes and patients, the next section will guide you in the corrective decisions that make up the three primary categories of mobility, stability and movement pattern retraining. You’ll get comparisons of conditioning and corrective exercise, movement prep and movement correction, skill training and corrective prioritization, and understand when each is appropriate.

Chapter 12–Building the Corrective Framework
This chapter provides a checklist for your corrective decisions: pain, purpose, posture, position, pattern and plan. Even though every person’s movement is unique, without this framework, your corrective path will not be as clear as it could be. You’ll also become familiar with the basic structure involving special considerations and populations that may make up part of your client or patient base.

Chapter 13–Movement Pattern Corrections
Chapter 13 builds on your knowledge of basic mobility and stability corrections and movement pattern retraining. Using passive, active and assistive techniques, you’ll be able to help your clients, athletes and patients recover lost mobility. Understanding stability and motor control, transitional postures and using facilitation techniques such as reactive neuromuscular training will give you the tools to challenge that new mobility. You’ll also become proficient at rolling after practicing the material in this rich chapter.

Chapter 14–Advanced Corrective Strategies
Finally, in the 24 remarkable pages of Chapter 14, you’ll learn how to make corrective exercise an experience. This is how corrective exercise actually works in the human body, and the thorough discussion found in this chapter will teach you how to create this for your clientele. Using PNF, RNT, reverse patterning, conscious loading, resisted and self-limiting exercises, you’ll grasp the concept of the manageable mistake zone, and you’ll be able to use these ideas and techniques to stand out in your crowded professional field.

Chapter 15–In Conclusion
This wrap-up section pulls the material together for one last review of where the industry is now, and where it’s heading. When you finish this section, you’ll have a complete understanding of the 10 principles of the Functional Movement System. These principles will guide you in learning and training authentic movement.

Appendices

  • Michael Boyle: Joint-by-Joint Concept
  • Gray Cook: Expanding on the Joint-by-Joint Approach
  • Greg Rose: SFMA Score Sheets and Flowcharts
  • Laurie McLaughlin: Introduction to Breathing
  • Gray Cook: Introduction to Heart Rate Variability
  • Gray Cook: Functional Movement Systems Team List
  • Gray Cook: Early Perspective and the Jump Study
  • Phil Plisky: Core Testing and Functional Goniometry
  • Lee Burton: FMS Scoring Criteria and Score Sheet
  • Authors: FMS Verbal Instructions
  • Gray Cook: Conventional Deep Squat Evaluation Process
  • Patient Self Evaluation Forms
  • List of Illustrations
  • References
  • Index

 

Excerpts

Gray Cook Movement Index Pages

Training Wheels Don’t Teach Balance

Self-Limiting Exercise

Movement Principles

Expanding on the Joint-by-Joint Approach

While many people consider Gray Cook’s Movement a Functional Movement Screen book, it’s much more than that. After the introduction wherein Gray makes the case for screening and lays out the screens and assessments, the rest of the book covers movement correction—what to do with each screen’s information. You need to understand the corrective decisions that make up the three primary categories of mobility, stability and movement pattern retraining. You’ll also want to understand comparisons of conditioning versus corrective exercise, movement prep and movement correction, skill training and corrective prioritization, and understand when each is appropriate.

Understanding the differences between correct and corrective exercises, between challenging versus difficult, and having a selection of self-limiting exercises in your exercise menu will give you confidence as you assign and program exercises.

Who Benefits?

Trainers, strength coaches and clinicians who are interested in learning the Functional Movement Screen to assess clients and patients

9 reviews for Gray Cook Movement book

  1. Jeferson Nery

    Is this book translated into Portuguese?

    • ldraper

      I’m sorry that Movement is not yet in Portuguese. Thank you for checking with us.

  2. Perry Nickelston

    The application of the principles contained in this book has changed the lives of many people—real world people I see every day in my clinic. People who have suffered in pain for years now have their quality of life restored because of the applied principles in this book.

    Movement was a paradigm shift for me as a clinician. Gray opened my eyes to the wonders of human movement and the systems necessary for understanding it. This was the system I had been searching for when determining why people were getting injured, and why their pain syndromes kept returning.

    People asked, “Why does my pain keep coming back?” and I never had an answer. That is… until I discovered Movement.

    ~ Dr. Perry Nickelston

  3. Michelle Wie

    I was skeptical when Gray and Lee first took me through the screening process. But by bringing out my weak spots, this honest evaluation told them exactly what I needed to work on.

    They taught me to think of my body in a different way, proving trainers and therapists don’t need fancy equipment to do a good evaluation.

    ~ Michelle Wie, Professional Golfer

  4. Jon Torine

    I used the Functional Movement Screen in my work with training professional football players, and you can use it for your work with hearty athletes, personal training clients and rehabilitation patients as well. It’s that versatile, that effective and that appealing.

    Everything we did at the Indianapolis Colts is built on a Functional Movement Screen base—it’s the foundation of the program.

    ~ Jon Torine, Former Strength and Conditioning Coach, Indianapolis Colts

  5. Mike Strock

    We have integrated many of Gray Cook’s movement principles and corrective strategies into our programs to help accomplish our mission of preserving and maintaining the Commander’s combat power.

    The FMS screening and assessment tools are very useful in establishing the baseline for our performance training system.

    ~ Mike Strock, US NAVY, Human Performance Consultant

  6. Eric Beard

    An excellent desktop resource. I found the text to be an effective mix of scientific rationale and practical application. Grey Cook’s Movement book has helped me to better understand and facilitate the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) and communicate it’s purpose and results with clients, patients, athletes and other practitioners. If you are looking to deepen your understanding of the FMS or Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA) or to expand your horizons on human movement I recommend that you read this book.

  7. Dennis Rodgers

    30 years of coaching and personal training, this should have been the first book I read. It could have saved me years of figuring it all out.

  8. Joe C

    I have been a follower of FMS, Gray and Lee for quite some time. Their concepts and applications regarding movement make so much sense and address it differently than I had ever seen before. I use the FMS on a regular basis with clients and this book helps me to put it all together in my mind and more easily relay the info to others. I highly recommend it!

  9. Keri

    I was studying exercise science but not really finding the answers to why so many people were suffering with dysfunctional joints. Amazon suggested this book to me and for that I am grateful. This book really started a conversation that I wasn’t hearing in class, what is functional movement and how to address it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a body and would like to understand how to use it better.

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Product FAQ

The paperback book is 8.5×11, 408 pages, ISBN: 978-1931046305

The ebook edition includes the PDF, Kindle and epub files.

The hardcover edition is no longer in print.

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