Staying on the Ground

My last post talked about the importance of the foot and how it affects everything up the chain. To add to that many therapists and movement specialists have been recognizing the importance of getting people back down on the ground.

What PTs such as Gray Cook have been finding is that patients coming to him with dysfunction often lack the ability to perform fundamental human movements such as squatting or getting up off the ground. In response, by working on mobility, flexibility, and relearning basic movement patterns such as those in the Turkish getup they have gotten good results. Even strength and conditioning coaches such as Mike Boyle have been getting their athletes on the ground.

Among my clients I constantly see the need for improves mobility and flexibility. Particularly in the hips, lower body, and back. When the hips and back improve there are less restrictions which equal better results and less injury.

I have dug back in my martial arts background for some drills we used in Judo/Jiujitsu/Karate, but some are a bit too rough or impractical for use in the gym. Ginastica Natural however has some pretty interesting movements that could prove beneficial for clients.

Here is an interesting video of a Ginastica Natural flow drill. Some of this is specific to grappling but there are some interesting ideas in there nonetheless.



A famous proponent of this sort of movement is Rickson Gracie, who aside from being a legend of Brazilian Jiujitsu, possesses incredible kinesthetic awareness and control. And reportedly even now well into his 50's he can go in circles against guys 30 years his junior.