Join Kelly Starrett, owner of San Francisco CrossFit and creator of MobilityWOD, as he teaches coaches and their athletes how to diagnose dysfunction.
In Part 4, Starrett shares his athlete checklist.
“When I look at athletes this is how I diagnose their movement inefficiency and how I can break down any movement, any sport, any position, anything right away,” he says.
First, he looks for best fit set-up, and if that can’t be achieved, he assesses technique.
“When an athlete has a problem, delve into the nuance of the movement, and that’s the level of detail where we start to see the significant changes and the significant outcomes,” he says.
Next, Starrett looks at midline stabilization.
“If I have movement mechanic faults at the spine, I literally can’t stabilize the shoulder and I can’t stabilize the hip, (and) musculature becomes tight because the spine is in a bad position and things become weak,” he says.
Then Starrett tackles upstream and downstream issues by looking at muscles and joints above and below the pain or inflexibility.
“We don’t ever isolate. You’re a system of systems, and pulling one joint or one movement out of context of the whole thing doesn’t make sense,” he says.
Finally, Starrett has the athlete mobilize at the point of restriction.
“We mobilize in the position of movement restriction, and in that situation I’ll catch everything that’s tight and I’ll fix everything that’s tight because those tissues will come on tension and be organized for me to be able to perform that movement,” he says.
10min 29sec
HD file size: 219 MB
SD wmv file size: 130 MB
SD mov file size: 111 MB
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Additional reading: Hamstrung by Kelly Starrett, published July 1, 2007.