I look forward to your post.

While I understand the history of some of the ones you use here and they can be good general screens, I personally don’t use any of them.

I know that probably seems like heresy, but my eval is generally just a few things

1) gait – allows you to see the “real” them in motion (as long as you get them to do a real gait). You want to see what “auto software” their brain is really running.

2) active range of motion – normally just shoulders to the side and front and also a flexed forward bend. Sometimes neck rotation.

3) a movement they can’t do without pain – for some it is a lunge, or lunge and twist, shoulder out in front, etc. This is normally the real reason they should at my door.

There are a host of other things I may test for depending on what I find, but those 3 I find most useful. I guess I could add muscle testing for lats, glute med, RF, and psoas too.

I teach axial/spinal lengthening to get all the “core” muscles to fire. If I still think they are weak, I will do a muscle test for the abdominal muscles and if they fail, I will have them do an active cranial mobilization for the sagittal suture and that works almost all the time.

Sorry for the hijack, and I think I have a new blog post! ha!
Rock on
Mike T Nelson PhD(c)
http://www.ExtremeHumanPeformance.com

Sometimes cues are the magic solution though and the tool of a good coach. It sounds as if you’ve found the one that works for your friend.

I never had a problem with this test. A friend of mine tried it and couldn’t do it, But I noticed that he roled onto his butt while lowering his legs. As I told hime to keep the butt away from his upper body and in his next attempt he could do 8 reps in a row.

With the double leg lowering test I like to keep the back flat against the floor. I do this mostly because the external obliques fire together to cause posterior rotation of the pelvis, but also because it makes it easier to determine success or failure on the test. When the lower back raises from the floor even small movements are easy to detect. If the spine were held in neutral I suspect it would be harder to pick up changes in the lumbar curve.

As for the arms, I prefer to have people put them on their external obliques to monitor their activity so they don’t try to perform the exercise with the rectus abdominus. I’m obviously trying to prevent counterbalancing too. Doing this kills two birds with one stone.

With the front plank and back extension hold, is the dowel to be used just for testing purposes and possibly in the initial stage of traininf to get a client to understand what the correct positioning will feel like?

On the double leg lowering test, should the back actually be flattened flush against the floor or should natural lordosis be maintained throughout (starts in “neutral” spine and stays that way throughout with no lumbar hyperextension)? I’ve seen some coaches who say that the eventual goal is to maintain neutral spine and others who advise using the posterior pelvic tilt and keeping the lower back flush against the floor. I just wanted to clear this up so that I am not doing anything silly!

Also, are the arms to be held across the chest or with the hands on the obliques, to prevent them from providing any measure of counterbalance during the test?

Thank you for sharing your informative blog and for taking the time to read my post.

As one of several tests, failure on this test does not conclusively provide proof of any instability by itself, but it does suggest that this warrants further investigation. Often people who fail this test will fail all attempts to do easier variations (such as deadbugs) which indicates to me that my initial assessment was correct.

I also like to use manual muscle testing to find out which muscles are inhibiting performance so this initial test directs my further testing procedures.

As for the dowel, yes, it runs along the length of the spine.

Hope that helps!

And, do you lay the dowel in line with the spine??

Great article… you’re a big inspiration!!