essentials of elite performance 2.0 course manual

EssEntials of ElitE pErformancE 2.0 coursE manual

W. Eric cobb, D.c.

Performance Solutionshealth

Z-HEALTH® EssEnTiALs of ELiTE pErformAncE

noticE of copyright & mEDical DisclaimEr

Copyright © 2014-2015 by Z-Health® Performance Solutions, LLC

Published and distributed in the United States by:

Z-Health® Performance Solutions, LLC8380 S. Kyrene Road, Suite 101Tempe, AZ 85284www.zhealtheducation.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means or in any formwhatsoever, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise copied for public or private use – other than as referenced material in articles and/or reviews - without the written permission of the author.

3rd Edition June 2015

picturE crEDits

All Photography by Z-Health Performance Solutions, LLCStock Photos used by permission.

DisclaimEr

The information provided by Z-Health Performance Solutions, LLC (“Z-Health”) is strictly intended for your general knowledge and for informational purposes only. The information contained in this or any Z-Health material, publications, or website (collectively “Z-Health Products”) is not to be construed as medical recommendations, medical advice, diagnosis, treatment or as professional advice, nor is it intended for use as a substitute for consultation with or advice given by a medical practitioner, health care practitioner, or fitness professional. Before beginning this or any exercise or nutritional program, you should consult with your physician.

Neither Z-Health, its affiliates, agents nor any other party involved in the preparation, publication or distribution of the works presented herein is responsible for any errors or omissions in information provided in this or any Z-Health Product. Z-Health makes no representation and assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of information contained herein or in any Z-Health Product. Z-Health specifically disclaims all responsibility and shall not be responsible for any liability, loss or risk, injury, damage, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use or application of any of the material contained in this product or any Z-Health Product. Z-Health does not recommend, endorse or make any representation about the efficacy, appropriateness or suitability of any specific tests, products, procedures, treatments, services, opinions, health care providers or other information that may be contained on or available through this product any Z-Health Product.

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If you have questions, please contact: [email protected].


tablE of contEnts

What is z-hEalth? 5

What is nEural plasticity? 6

you arE your brain 6

thE minimal EffEctivE DosE 7

What is an assEssmEnt? 8

z-hEalth is rEally about rE-assEssmEnt! 8

forms of assEssmEnt 9

founDational brain concEpts 11

thE tWo vital “nutriEnts” for a hEalthy brain 13

thE goals of r-phasE training 14

mEEt your propriocEptivE systEm 15

propriocEption livEs in thE brain 16

thE startlE rEflEx – our innatE thrEat rEsponsE 17

thE arthrokinEtic rEflEx 18

training rulEs 19

contrainDications 20

r-phasE is a tEmplatE 20

r-phasE training Drills 21

EssEntials of ElitE pErformancE - Day 1 rEviEW 35

Day 1 notEs 36

i-phasE origins 37

thE movEmEnt tEmplatE 39

introDucing thE nEural hiErarchy 40

a mathEmatical ExamplE 40

sEnsory matching anD mismatch 43


thE visual systEm anatomy & function 45

i-phasE visual systEm assEssmEnts 46

EyE musclE functions 46

thE vEstibular systEm 49

thE sEmicircular canals 51

vEstibular systEm assEssmEnts 53

i-phasE training Drills 54


Day 2 notEs 64

What is s-phasE? 65

What all athlEtEs must bE ablE to Do WEll 66

s-phasE vision training 67

visual rEflExEs 68

pEncil pushups (convErgEncE & DivErgEncE) 69

pEncil pushup With variations 69

lEttErball tracking 70

hanD-EyE anD foot-EyE coorDination tEst 71

s-phasE movEmEnt Drills 72

thE static athlEtic rEaDy stancE 74

thE t-stEp 75

thE hip turn 76

combination Drills 77


Day 3 notEs 79

for furthEr rEaDing 81

about Dr. Eric cobb 82

Performance Solutionshealth EssEntials of ElitE PErformancE 5

Why is thE brain so important?

To use a simple analogy, if you are involved in racing cars, you know that all parts of the car are important, but winning and losing in most cases will ultimately depend on how the engine performs. The rest of the car is designed and built to house, protect, and serve the engine – while the engine provides the power to move through the world. The brain is like the engine of the performance vehicle.

You can change the tires, improve the struts, work on the transmission, and change the decals on the outside of car. However, most of those changes will make little difference if the engine is malfunctioning. The same is true of the human body.

What is z-hEalth?

Z-Health is a brain-based training system that predictably delivers life changing, high-speed results to our clients – whether they need professional education, rehabilitation, pain relief or performance enhancement. It’s a system so simple, and yet so advanced, that it’s changing the shape of health and fitness around the world.

At the R-Phase level, Z-Health is an intentionally designed system of movement-based exercise crafted to specifically target what matters most in human performance – the human brain.

6 EssEntials of ElitE PErformancEPerformance Solutionshealth

What is nEural plasticity?

When we talk about “changes in that individual’s nervous system,” we are referring to neural plasticity. Neural plasticity is a term that is currently defined this way in the literature:

Neural Plasticity: any change in neuron structure or function that is observed either directly from measures of individual neurons or inferred from measures taken across populations of neurons.

In Z-Health, we like to call this the “Science of Hope!”

We believe that neural plasticity is the greatest scientific discovery of our time. This concept tells us that the brain not only can change, but it does change constantly. If everything that we are is brain derived, isn’t it exciting to think that with the right stimulus, combined with the right amount of work, that we can indeed have a bigger and better future for ourselves by changing our own brain? The entire system that you are learning is based off this concept, and every tool, assessment and technique is designed to drive plasticity in the direction we want it to go.

you arE your brain

“Everything you have ever felt or done in your life was due to brain function. At the most basic level, the intricate firing rates and patterns of your brain both determine who you have been and, more importantly, who you will become. All human change represents changes in that individual’s nervous system. All that we are is brain-derived.”


thE minimal EffEctivE DosE

One of the most important concepts to come out of modern fitness research, is that not every body responds equally to the same stimulus. If you are in the business of training others, you already know this. However, there is a very unfortunate side effect coming from this research. Some people are being labeled as genetic non-responders to exercise. In other words, they are told that they are not genetically equipped to gain muscle, improve their aerobic fitness, or to lose body fat. We believe that this is a complete misunderstanding and misinterpretation of some very important ideas. When you look at the studies surrounding the individualized response to exercise, there is a glaring assumption made that is completely incorrect:

The assumption is, exercise is so easy that you cannot screw it up.

If you understand the basic idea presented above that the human brain is constantly monitoring for threats in your environment, as well as the fact that it changes your movement in response to those perceptions, it should be self-evident that exercise performed incorrectly can have a negative impact on the body.

To help our clients understand this better, we begin teaching them early on that exercise is a drug. And like all drugs, you need to take the right one at the right time at the right dosage to have the effect that you want.

In medicine, the goal is to search for something called the minimal effective dose. In other words, we want to take a minimal amount of any given drug to create the response looking for. Exercise should be viewed in exactly the same way.

1. Drugs have effects (there are no side effects) – some you want, some you don’t.

2. The effects are mostly DOSE-DEPENDENT.3. We need to think of exercise as a drug.4. Exercise can be under-dosed or over-dosed

quite easily and this is often based on the underlying movement capacity of the client.


What is an assEssmEnt?

Before we begin digging into each of the assessments, it is very important to understand what an assessment actually is and what role it serves. There is a great deal of confusion about assessment in the general health and fitness professional arena. Assessments, by their very nature, are only useful in picking a place to begin working with a client. Initial assessments should not be used to determine training programs that will last for six, eight or twelve weeks. They are simply used to understand where the client currently is, as well as an indicator of where we should begin our work. Assessments also are completely useless unless there is reassessment. Thus, it is in the reassessment arena that this certification will be strongly focused.

z-hEalth is rEally about

rE-assEssmEnt!

As you read above, Z-Health is really about re-assessment. One of the questions you need to ask yourself is, “When does change begin in the body?” Because we understand that change happens at the speed of the nervous system (virtually instantaneous), we believe that movement and other activities in the body also change nearly instantaneously with every stimulus that is applied. This means that in any given training session, we have many opportunities to reassess the impact of what we are doing with clients. And we should.

We need to realize that waiting 4, 6, or 12 weeks to reassess the client’s progress is simply allowing a lot of bad changes to potentially occur. While one exercise is not necessarily going to change someone’s body weight or BMI, we still want to understand the impact of every exercise or drill we apply to the client’s movement and/or body function immediately, so that we can shape each training session to make it most useful for our clients.

Remember that on average you have 2-3 hours each week (out of 168 total hours) to change your client’s body and life for the better. This demands a tremendous focus on QUALITY TRAINING!

Now that you understand that the focus of our system will be on the effects that we are creating, let’s dig into each of the R-Phase assessment procedures.


forms of assEssmEnt

Better movement in one area of the body echoes throughout the whole body and influences neural function and overall body function. So, there are several forms of reassessment that are relatively valid and somewhat quicker than performing a full motion assessment.

We teach each of these to our personal clients to use as a form of self-assessment that they can apply during training sessions in which we are not with them. Because these are so useful, we highly encourage you to explore them, but with the understanding that they are more subjective than what we teach in our certifications. As a result, we consider them potentially less accurate so they must be used carefully and with careful attention to detail.

1. rangE of motion

We test range of motion using an Active Range of Motion test. The client performs movement of the exercise while keeping good posture. Be sure to test the same limb or range of motion before and after drills to ensure a reliable result.

1. Shoulder Flexion (Arm To Front)2. Shoulder Abduction (Arm To Side)3. Shoulder Extension (Arm Behind)4. Trunk Forward Bend5. trunk rotation

6.

2. strEngth

Strength exercises can be graded by the athlete using a “Rating of Perceived Exertion,” or “RPE” on a scale of 1-10 where 1 is “Extremely Easy” and 10 is “Extremely Hard.”

1. Bodyweight squats2. Bodyweight lunges3. Push-Ups (normal or against a wall)4. Pull-Ups (or assisted pull-ups)


3. balancE

Single-leg balance (eyes open or eyes closed) can be timed by the coach as a gross assessment of body function and neural integration. An increase in duration of balance would signify an improvement in function.

Single-leg balance with:1. Eyes Open2. eyes closed

4. functional activitiEs

We’ve grouped functional activities into one category of assessment. This means you can simply watch the client (or record video) performing any movement skill and then re-assess the following:

1. improved quality of movement2. Decreased pain3. increased movement speed


founDational brain concEpts

Now that we have discussed the fact that the brain is the primary target of everything that we do in Z-Health, we want to explore some of the foundational premises that we have on how the brain works.

The Brain’s FirsT JoB - survival

When you look at the human brain, especially from a reflexive standpoint, it is quite obvious that the underlying programs of the brain are designed with one goal in mind-survival.

While it can be easy to forget this fact in our relatively safe day-to-day world, constantly keeping the survival focus of the human brain in mind is essential to be an excellent coach in the system. Your brain does not REALLY care how much weight you can lift, or how far you can run, in its most primitive areas – it only cares that you survive the attempt!

Brain-feeding pattern

how Does The Brain Keep us alive?

If survival is the primary goal of the human brain, and we are targeting it in our system, we need to understand some of the functions that occur in the survival process.

First and foremost, we have a great deal of survival functioning that is occurring below the limits of our normal, everyday awareness-at least for most people. For example, your heart rate, your respiratory rate, your blood pressure, pupil dilation, and extremity blood flow all take care of themselves for the most part. While you may have spent some time training yourself to lower your own heart rate, or blood pressure through meditative types of practices, in general these functions take care of themselves regardless of your awareness of them. This concept is fairly evident to most people. However, there is an entirely different level of survival function that is ALSO constantly occurring in the brain.


“I’ve had many trials and problems in my life . . . most of which never happened to me.” - MarK Twain

The second level of survival processing in the human brain can be summed up in two words PATTERN RECOGNITION, or more simply PREDICTION.

What has become evident over the last 15 years of neuroscientific research, is that the human brain is constantly making predictions about both our internal and external environments every microsecond of every day.

As you walk along the street, you are constantly evaluating your environment, from cars that are approaching you to bicycles to other pedestrians walking their dogs. And, whether you know it or not, your brain is altering your behavior and movements on a second-by-second basis to ensure your ongoing survival. To do this, your brain calls on prior experiences to predict what is most likely about to happen – even lots of experiences that NEVER HAPPENED.

Where prediction can, and often does, go terribly wrong, is when our basic sensor systems, such as our eyes, inner ear, or muscle and joint nerve endings provide bad information to the brain. Your brain can only make good predictions when it has good (trustworthy) incoming sensory information. Without good information, your predictive capacity decreases, and this will definitively show up in how you move through the world.

The Brain’s seconD JoB – MoveMenT

There is a growing consensus among those who study the brain for a living, that its development and design is specifically to promote efficient movement through the world. We believe this so strongly that in the Z-Health system, we say:

“Movement is the basic currency of health, fitness and performance. Great movement produces pain-free, high-level performance. Bad movement promotes pain, dysfunction, and progressive decreases in movement that lead to progressive decreases in brain function and quality. Movement IS life.


thE tWo vital “nutriEnts” for a hEalthy brain

To understand the complex interaction of the human nervous system, we want to start by discussing the basic functional unit of the brain - the neuron. At a fundamental level, the neuron is the operational cell of the central nervous system. Neurons do really only two basic actions, they turn on or turn off other neurons that they are connected to. This is referred to as excitation or inhibition.How neurons KNOW to turn on or turn off its neighbors, is one of the ongoing mysteries of neurology. It is complicated, and it is made more complex by the fact that there are actually hundreds of different types of neurons. With that said, however, we do have a good understanding of how neurons stay healthy.

There are basically two requirements that a neuron must have in order to maintain his functional capacity – or as we like to say, “to stay alive”:

1. Fuel (oxygen & glucose)

Whenever we talk about the brain’s fuel supply, there are two critical areas of concern:

A. Adequate gaseous exchange. This is mainly focused on oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange and maintaining a healthy ratio of carbon dioxide in the body. Respiratory movement patterns and habitual breathing behaviors are critical to evaluate if you are dealing with an athlete that you suspect is suffering from a fuel supply issue.

B. Sufficient supply of nutrients and energy cofactors to the brain - primarily glucose.

2. acTivaTion

Neurons function on the USE IT OR LOSE IT PRINCIPLE. This means that neurons must be stimulated (active) in order to be healthy. When a neuron receives neurological communication – whether that be inhibitory or excitatory signals – it allows for the DNA that resides in the neuron to do its job. The end result of this process is that the neuron can produce the necessary components such as proteins and neurotransmitters to perform its functions. The simple rule here is that you DO NOT WANT to leave most neurons under-activated for very long!


thE goals of r-phasE training

Just like reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic were considered the three necessary pieces of classical education, we also have 3 R’s in our R-Phase movement education series. They are:

1. injury rehabilitation – most people do not think of themselves, or their clients as injured unless they are currently experiencing pain. However, from a movement perspective, unless someone has done excellent rehabilitation, most people carry some level of prior injury in their movement patterns. This happens because only two weeks of walking regularly with an injury can create a change that is semi-permanent in your body maps. We have to observe, recognize and correct those injury based movement patterns to help our clients move to the next level of performance.

2. Neural Re-Education – we have already spoken about the brain in depth. We began this course mentioning the fact that everything in the system, and in fact everything in health and fitness, targets the brain whether we know it or not. As a result all of our tools, assessments, and techniques are applied to most quickly reeducate the nervous system and change it from what it currently is into a better operating state. You can think of what we do in R-Phase as “debugging” the brain’s software as we also upgrade the hardware.

3. Mobility restoration – as you will find in both this course and in other Z-Health courses, there are many ways to improve human function. To be a complete coach we must look at the three “governing” systems of movement in the human body:

1. the visual system2. the vestibular system3. The movement (proprioceptive) system.

In R-Phase, we focus on the movement (proprioceptive) system first, because the types of exercises in this part of our curriculum will be more familiar to both you and your clients. Over the years, we have found that starting with proprioception is the fastest way to begin integrating Z-Health training with your current work. The reason that we focus so much on mobility in this course is that the brain relies on excellent information from the movement nerve endings found around joints to improve its predictive capacity as you move through the world.


mEEt your propriocEptivE systEm

In the section entitled the 3 R’s of R-Phase, we discussed the idea of mobility restoration as one of the three foundational principles of this certification.

Mobility restoration exercises are specifically designed to target one portion of our nervous system, a part that is called the proprioceptive system.

Proprioception is defined as the 3-D awareness map of our own body in space and time.

What this basically means, is that at every microsecond of every day your brain is receiving signals from your body, and it is forming a “virtual image” of you from those signals. Some estimates place the amount of signaling that you receive at between 11,000,000 and 20,000,000 signals/second.

the proprioceptive system is composed of three distinct parts:

1. the brain2. the spinal cord3. the peripheral nerve endings

When it comes to the peripheral nerve endings, there are several different types that contribute to our proprioceptive map - but at this level, we will discuss only three of these.

1. Mechanoreceptors – these nerve endings sense movement in the body. There are multiple classifications and subdivisions, but for now we will simplify by saying that these send signals regarding tension, speed of movement, and angle of movement from the periphery to the brain. They are key components of your proprioceptive system with regards to predicting movement through your environment.

2. Baroreceptors – these nerve endings sense pressure. There are various types of baroreceptors in the body, but for our purposes in this course we are most interested in the baroreceptors both in the feet and hands. Much of our balance comes from baroreceptor stimulation in the feet, while our dexterity and ability to manipulate objects and tools is partially controlled by baroreceptor sensitivity in the hands.

3. Nociceptors – these are among the most confusing of all types of nerve endings. These send signals regarding noxious stimulus to the brain, or in other words stimulus that is considered dangerous, toxic or foreign. In other courses or readings, you may have heard of these as PAIN nerve endings. While they do carry pain signals, that is not their only task. It is very important as you move forward in our system to understand that nociceptors are actually Threat Receptors.


propriocEption livEs in thE brain

The most important thing that you can remember about the proprioceptive system at this stage in your training, is that the integration of all of those signals coming from the nerve endings in the periphery of the body are integrated in the brain. Therefore, you can think of it this way - your brain is the holding area for the maps of your body that you use to navigate your environments.

As you think about proprioceptive mapping in the body, you need to connect this back to the idea of prediction. Just as in real life, a more detailed map provides more useful information in helping you reach your destination most efficiently, in the human brain, a poor map, leads to poor pattern recognition or prediction.

The primary ramifications of poor mapping in the brain are:

1. Startle activity, which we will discuss soon.2. Increased sensitivity/fear of the environment.3. Decreased movement capability as built-in reflexes trigger to prevent you from interacting with the

environment. 4. Poor motor and cognitive performance, pain and dysfunction.

The reason that we focus on mobility restoration in this certification is that properly performed joint mobility exercises can have a tremendous impact on the proprioceptive function, because of the high density of nerve endings that surround our joints.

When you look at the design of the human body, it is evident that the greatest amount of motion occurs at our joints – they are the hinges that allow us to bend, rotate and twist. In any form of machine design we generally want to have the greatest amount of data coming from the moving parts (the joints), and human body is no exception.


thE startlE rEflEx – our innatE thrEat rEsponsE

As previously discussed, the Startle Reflex is a powerful indicator of how difficult or dangerous the nervous system perceives any given movement to be. Movements that are excessively complicated or difficult can provoke differing levels of startle in your clients. Understanding the basic components of the startle reflex and why they occur is an integral part of being an elite movement coach. By identifying the subtle manifestations of startle activity in clients and then modifying the exercise appropriately you can dramatically improve their movement efficiency.

here is whaT The sTarTle reFlex looKs liKe:

HEAD – The head moves forward and down to shield the front of the throat and use the base of the skull to cover the more fragile upper cervical spine.

SHOUlDERS – The trapezius muscles contract bilaterally and raise shoulders up toward ears. This creates a further shield for the cervical spine and throat.

FAcE –The startle reflex tenses all facial and jaw muscles and closes the eyes in an attempt to protect vision and prevent an unprotected blow to the jaw.

cHEST – Anterior chest muscles contract and pull the shoulders forward and down to protect the throat and upper rib cage, which contain the heart and lungs.

RiBS – The intercostals muscles tighten and lock down the ribs in an effort to protect the lungs.

ABDOmEN – All abdominal muscles, deep spinal muscles and pelvic floor muscles contract cooperatively to flex the body forward. This is done in hopes of shielding the internal organs from trauma as well as to develop a strong, stable base from which to move.

GlUTEAlS – Along with the abdominal contraction, the gluteals also contract bilaterally to tip the pelvis. This aids in flexing the body and abdomen forward.

lEGS – The adductors lead the contractions in the legs to lower the center of gravity and pull the legs in to protect the pelvic floor from damage.


thE arthrokinEtic rEflEx

A reflex is an immediate, unconscious response to stimulus (usually a threatening stimulus). This particular reflex is based on joint movement and joint position and is one of the missing links in performance enhancement.

When your nervous system receives proprioceptive signals telling it that a joint is in a closed, compressed, or immobile position, it immediately creates a reflexive response that decreases muscle activation in the body in order to protect the joint. On the other hand, studies have shown that mobilization of joints increases reflexive strength in the body. Also, we know that mobilization stimulates the nervous system because mechanoreceptors, baroreceptors, nociceptors, muscle spindles, golgi tendon organs, and the nerve pathways themselves are all utilized in movement.

Thus the saying that summarizes the arthrokinetic reflex:

“Jammed or immobile joints create weak muscles. Mobile or open joints create

strength.”

To explain in more detail, we have different “maps” in the brain for different types of nerve input, which are integrated to create the responses and adaptations that make us who we are (in Z-Health we call this ongoing integrative process the Neuromatrix). The brain interprets information sent from various nerve receptors to these maps as either good or bad and responds accordingly by increasing or decreasing physical and neuro attributes. Good stimulus clears up the proprioceptive map, which in turn decreases the nervous system’s threat level and increases strength, flexibility, coordination, and speed. Bad stimuli do the opposite, and the end results are weakness, inflexibility, lack of coordination or speed, and often times, pain. The brain receives more information when active mobilization of joints is performed, rather than passive, because more structures, muscles, and tissues are involved in relaying info about the movement to the central nervous system. This leads to clearer maps for the whole body and longer lasting change in physical and neuro attributes.

In Z-Health, we understand that change happens at the speed of the nervous system (almost immediately), so we pre- and post-test these attributes to observe the strength, flexibility, or coordination modifications that are created. By using arthrokinetic reflex testing after a drill or exercise, you can examine how the nervous system interpreted (liked or disliked) certain stimuli.


training rulEs

There are 5 basic rules of training in the Z-Health system:

1. Never move into pain2. If you have pain, slow down and decrease the

range of motion3. Long Spine/Long Body Position4. Concentrate5. Relax as much as possible

While each of the above rules are vital, the most important (and often confusing one) is “Never move into pain.” Pain is a signal that there is a problem somewhere, and your client’s body will do almost anything to avoid it! Training in pain will not only slow down your client’s progress and decrease training efficiency, but it will actually set the stage for long-term injury. So don’t allow your clients to do it! Here are the three rules to remember.

If your client experiences pain in any Z-Health exercise:

1. Decrease the range of motion.2. Slow down the speed of your movements.3. Work to the edge of the range of motion that

creates pain, but never into it. As this is done progressively, the pain free range of motion will increase.

how To Tell The DiFFerence BeTween pain anD DiscoMForT

One of the most common questions we get in this course is, “Isn’t some level of pain necessary in rehabilitation and training to have a positive impact on the body?”

This is a great question with a relatively simple answer. Discomfort in training is generally “ok” – pain is not.

How do you tell the difference between discomfort and pain? We use a very simple definition – one that you should share with your clients:

Pain is a level of sensation that you cannot breathe or relax through. It causes some form of startle. Discomfort on the other hand, is an unpleasant sensation through which you can breathe, relax and continue to function.

Remember, in Z-Health practice, pain is to be avoided. Discomfort is ok – sometimes.

In general, effective pain-free training is our primary goal.


contrainDications

As in medicine, the first rule of training should be “First do no harm!” So, let’s begin by looking at the contraindications to Z-Health. R-Phase (done properly) is very safe for virtually everyone. However, there are a number of conditions generally regarded as potentially problematic when practicing these movements. Please understand that all of the conditions below are “relative contraindications”. What this means is that in most cases you or your client can still practice Z-Health even if you are dealing with any of these issues. However, only their physician can determine exactly how you should use Z-Health in relation to these conditions. Professionally, protect your client and yourself by consulting their physician prior to beginning Z-Health or ANY movement or exercise program with them.

The conditions that are of most concern are:1. Joint Hypermobility - Usually this occurs after ligamentous

tearing has taken place2. Joint Effusion (Swelling) - Typically from trauma or disease3. Inflammation - Joint inflammation accompanied by heat,

redness &/or swelling4. Malignancy - Many forms of malignancy adversely impact

bone health and strength5. Bone Disease - Some diseases weaken bone which can lead

to fracture or injury6. Fractures - Z-Health is not appropriate for any body area with a recent fracture7. Total Joint Replacements - All movements should be cleared with your physician8. Post-Surgical - During the early recovery period, Z-Health may be inappropriate

r-phasE is a tEmplatE

One of the most important things you must understand about R-Phase is that it is a movement “template”. What this means is that you can take any R-Phase exercise and apply it for your client in the position and at the speed that makes the most difference. Additionally, while R-Phase has a standard progression of exercises, when using it as a template it does not have to be performed in a strict order. In other words, you can “pick and choose” the exercises to use for your clients – particularly those who are attempting to rehab an area. Here are the three ways that we most often apply the template:

1. Standing in Neutral2. Seated in Neutral3. Lying in Neutral

Keep this in mind as many of your clients will not be able to perform even a “simple” R-Phase drill correctly while standing in neutral. In those cases, feel free to put them in a chair or down on a mat to work the drill. Just always keep in mind that the SAID Principle is still in force – so eventually we want to progress every client to working the drills while standing and/or moving.


r-phasE training Drills


EssEntials of ElitE pErformancE - Day 1 rEviEW

1. What is Z-Health?a. Definitionb. Why is the Brain so Important?

2. Why Did We Develop This Class?a. Brain-Based Training Is The Future of Health and Fitnessb. We want to create a Paradigm Shift for You: From Biomechanical to NEURObiomechanical(we’re not throwing out biomechanics but we have to understand thecontrol mechanisms)c. Teach you High Payoff Exercises and Drills to Vastly improve your own performanceand that of your clientsd. Show you how to completely avoid or minimize the consequences of BADEXERCISE!

3. Your Brain is Always Changing – Whether You Want it To or Not - Neural Plasticitya. What Is It?b. Hope For Your Future!

4. Exercise – You CAN Screw It Up!a. Minimal Effective Doseb. How can you know? Assess and Re-Assessc. Remember, If You’re Not Assessing You’re Guessing!

5. Assessment Basicsa. When Can You See a Change in the Body? (How fast is the Nervous System?)b. What are signs it’s going badly?

i. Startle Reflex – If you’re a coachii. Repeatable Self Assessments – For your own training and to teach to yourclients

6. Basic Forms of Assessmenta. Active Range of Motionb. Strengthc. Balanced. Functional Activities

7. The Brain’s Primary Jobs = Survival & Movement8. How the Brain Helps Us Survive

a. Prediction – We will talk more about this TOMORROWb. Movement – Today is all about MOVING BETTER THAN WE DID YESTERDAY!

9. The Brain Creates Movement, and Movement Creates The Body You Have!a. Form Follows Functionb. Wolff’s Law and Davis’ Lawc. You Have Approximately 3 Hour per week (out of 168 total hours) to change them.d. Better Movement is the Key!

10. Proprioception – How We Build Our Movement Mapsa. Three Parts (Nerve Endings, Spinal Cord, Brain)b. It LIVES in the brainc. Proprioception is about INTEGRATION of all of the signalsd. Better Maps = Better Movement = Better Performance/Less Pain and Vice Versa

11. The Arthrokinetic Reflexa. Jammed joints create weak musclesb. Mobile joints create strength

12. R-Phase Dynamic Joint Mobility Exercises - 6 High Payoff Drills


Day 1 notEs


i-phasE origins

Now that we’ve primed our brains to think about… our brains… we want to delve into the foundational I-Phase material. We will start by talking about WHERE this information comes from.

how iT sTarTeD

In the beginning stages of this certification, one of the most common questions we get is, “Where does I-Phase come from? Why have I never been taught this information in other courses/classes or certifications?”

The simple answer, to steal an advertising slogan from Lexus, is “The relentless pursuit of perfection.” But, rather than stopping with that awesome phrase, we want to give you a little more detail. The fact is that everything in this course began decades ago in an effort to reverse engineer elite level athletic performance.

Our burning passion has always been to discover, at the most basic level, the hallmark characteristics of elite performance. And while there has been a ton of research in this arena around the world, years ago it appeared that in most cases, researchers chose their favorite attribute to describe what separates the good from the great. Some would say great athletes are simply stronger. Others would say they are simply faster than the competition. Still others would say greatness is all about mental strength. While all of these attributes are vital on their own, trying to whittle it down to only one or two keys to high performance always seemed to us to be far too simplistic an idea. From our perspective, elite human performance is an incredible example of highly integrated functions that encompass every system of the body.

In our experience, the most often agreed-upon attribute of elite-level athletes is that they exude an “effortless” quality in their movement and performance. In fact, this belief is so prevalent that the most common statement we hear about great athletes is, “They make everything look easy.” This phrase is one that we’ve heard literally thousands of times over the last 20+ years.

Unfortunately, while this is a great visual distinction, it’s not particularly helpful in terms of helping people BECOME ELITE! As we learned long ago, effortlessness is not an easy drill to teach.

However, this early understanding of movement QUALITY lead us into years of deeper study and observation in an effort to understand the underlying physiologic SKILLS that made elite athletes stand out. We wanted to discover all of the possible keys, and then build drills that would help our “average” clients achieve remarkable results. While we know that not everyone craves “elite” levels of performance and fitness, we’ve NEVER met anyone who complained when they got there!

The rouTe we TooK

During the course of our research, it became apparent that elite athletic movement shares characteristics across every sport. The I-phase drill series is a specifically designed series of exercises intended to develop the same levels of joint mobility, coordination, flexibility and body control seen in elite athletes.


who were The MoDels For These MoveMenTs?

In the early stages of designing this movement series, some mistakes were made. In the beginning, we analyzed the movement of athletes who were currently successful. What quickly became apparent, however, is that many athletes succeeded in their sport for a short period of time by overcoming movement and technical deficits through sheer willpower. We quickly discovered that these were not movement patterns that we wanted to either emulate or teach. So, over a period of time, we developed a set of criteria that were very simple, but they allowed us to really focus on learning from the very best of the best. The criteria were:

1. Be considered the very best in their sport.2. Maintain that position for at least 7 to 10 years.

Generally speaking, any athlete of any sport that meets these criteria has movement patterns that we can learn from – and we did!


thE movEmEnt tEmplatE

One of the most critical pieces of this certification is growing your ability to utilize the I-Phase movement template. This is one of the key “secret” concepts of I-Phase that is often overlooked or under-utilized. Don’t fall into that trap!

What we learned from our efforts to reverse engineer athletic movement is that virtually any athletic skill or can be analyzed and replicated by looking at six different body areas. Those areas are:

1. Foot Position2. Lunge Position3. Spine/Trunk Position4. Head/Neck Position5. Eye Position6. Limb Position

Once you understand this template, not only is it an amazing assessment tool, but also a means to constantly creating improved neural function in the body.

Two priMary uses For The TeMplaTe

1. assessment – Imagine that you are working with an athlete and you want to help him improve his tennis forehand. If you watch high-level performers (Thank You YouTube!) in tennis, you will see extreme similarities in the six areas of the template mentioned above in all of the elite athletes. At that point, it becomes quite simple to watch your client and notice where their immobility or lack of movement skill is preventing them from moving like an elite performer. Once you can identify this prob-lem, the I-Phase exercise series provides you with very SAID-specific drills that you can use to fix whatever problems you see.

2. training – If you remember when we discussed the brain’s basic functional activities earlier, we noted that pattern recognition and/or prediction are its foundational operating directives. When we boil this down into easy language, it basically means that the human brain will function better when it has a big library of experienc-es to draw from. In movement, what usually happens is that we become very fixed in how we move through the world. We walk the same way, talk the same way, and run the same way all the time. While this may make us very good at those activities, this may also prevent us from being ready for whatever the world presents. Remember, life is a full contact sport. So the move-ment template is designed to bring great variety to all of your training with the intent of INNOCULATING YOU AGAINST FUTURE MOVEMENT THREATS. This makes the template applicable whether you are doing mobility work, strength training, or sports performance preparation.


introDucing thE nEural hiErarchy

It is now time to dive more deeply into the human nervous system than perhaps you’ve ever been before.

The human nervous system is designed specifically to promote moment-to-moment survival. It accomplishes this process via an ongoing series of predictive analyses of both our internal and external environments. In other words, your nervous system, which is the guard that is always on duty, is constantly evaluating your body and your environment, scanning for signs of danger and threat.

How does it do this?

your nervous system utilizes three primary tools (physiologic systems) to orient you in your environment:

1. your Visual system2. your Vestibular system3. your Proprioceptive system

Each one of these systems is incredibly important – fulfilling a unique role in the total equation of movement.

It would be tempting to think that since we have 3 systems, that each of them is equally important – and in many ways this is true. However, on a practical level, the nervous system appears to have a generalized hierarchical approach to how dependent it is on each of these three systems. We believe that this hierarchy is driven by survival needs based off predictive capacity. In simpler terms, the brain prioritizes the information it receives based off the ability of that information to recognize threats in our environment (both internal and external) most quickly. Based on our experience, we believe that the neural hierarchy is:

a mathEmatical

visual

vesTiBular

propriocepTive


ExamplE

While there is no firm research that indicates the relative percentage of movement control as it is allocated between these three systems, it can still be helpful to view this from a mathematical perspective. Lets assume that our goal in creating elite athletic movement is to have 100% accurate function and congruency between all three systems. We could visualize it like this based on our opinion of the relative contributions of each system:

Visual = 45%Vestibular = 35%Proprioceptive = 20%total = 100%

In this case, we can see all three systems of the hierarchy are functioning perfectly contributing to 100% accuracy and congruency of information related to environment within the nervous system. At this level of performance, we would expect movement to be both elegant and efficient.The “Typical” clienT

Now, let’s consider a typical client. They have poor vision, corrected by glasses. In addition to this, they may have a mild vestibular issue from a car accident

two year ago. On top of that, over the course of the last 10 years they have had a back injury, neck injury and foot injury.

This collection of issues, may change their percentages to:

Vision = 33%Vestibular = 30%Proprioceptive = 15%total = 78%

This will total up to a score of 78% - a high C from our time in school. While this client may not know it, the mildly degraded sensory information from each system in their neural hierarchy is creating for them an average movement capability. Plus, there is one more major factor in play here. Because everything in the body is a skill, if clients do not practice improving their vision, vestibular function, and movement qualities, they will not only NOT get better, but they will actually degrade over time.

With this in mind, let’s now consider where the vast majority of the health and fitness fields have gotten it badly wrong… well Then, i MusT neeD To geT in shape!


In almost every single case we have ever encountered, health and fitness training has been 100% dedicated to the proprioceptive system. So in the case of the client above, let’s say they met up with the world’s greatest proprioceptive trainer who put them through an extensive functional movement-training program. We will assume that they responded to it perfectly and were able to fully restore all proprioceptive function (although we don’t really think this is possible because of the integration required). Looking at this from our mathematical example, we now have the following situation:

Vision = 33%Vestibular = 30%Proprioceptive = 20% total = 83%

We now have a client that has moved from having a C grade hierarchy to having a B grade body… a low B grade at that. The real problem here is that there is now nowhere for this client to go. He will now be faced with training harder and harder over the coming years to simply maintain his low score. To some degree, there is only so far we can go in training if we neglect all the major systems that control movement.

This is why Z-Health is so focused on assessing and training the three control systems for movement. It offers us the greatest number of opportunities to make fast changes in our clients as well as multiple paths to lifelong progress.


sEnsory matching anD mismatch

While understanding the neural hierarchy is critical to being an effective coach, there is also one more level of complication that we must understand: the necessity for sensory systems to tell the same story to the brain at all times. This is what we mean when we talk about INTEGRATION!

Let’s look at this way, if your brain functions as a neural GPS, it’s job is to locate you in space utilizing the three “satellites” of the neural hierarchy – your visual, vestibular and proprioceptive systems. For this to function correctly, there are two primary requirements:

1. The information from each satellite must be clear and understandable to the brain.

2. The brain must be able to correctly integrate all that information together.

In high functioning athletes, this is an almost mystical capability. It happens without conscious thought, with complete integrity, leading to extraordinary human movement and performance.

However, this is much more the exception than the rule. The fact is that almost everyone you work with will have malfunctions in both areas mentioned above. They will have poor function in one or more of the sat-ellite systems, AND their brain will have a difficult time integrating the information appropriately.

To put this into concrete terms, imagine what would happen if you were driving your car to an unknown destination and you had to rely on your GPS to guide you. Now imagine that instead of functioning properly, your GPS was getting different information about your location from each satellite that it was connecting to. Finally, to top it off, your GPS blows a circuit that would occasionally prevent it from integrating the information coming in from the satellites. What do you think would happen?

At a basic level, it would be very difficult to find your way. You would drive slowly and cautiously, constantly trying to understand where you were. You would likely grow frustrated, tense and angry as the struggle to simply GET to your destination utilized all of your energy and mental reserves.


This is an excellent analogy of what happens in the human body when there are either satellite problems or central processing problems. Our job in this certification is to begin learning how to assess each of the satellite systems in more depth as well as how to help the brain integrate the information more effectively. Every assessment and tool in this course is designed specifically with this in mind.

whaT is sensory MisMaTch?

Whenever the GPS of the human body gets confused or malfunctions as we described above, we call this sensory mismatch. This is NOT just a Z-Health term. Sensory mismatch is a well-known phenomenon in health and neuroscience circles with the most common example of it being motion sickness. Motion sickness occurs when the eyes and inner ear are giving the brain competing information (the satellites are not saying the same thing) and the brain cannot manage the discrepancy. As the threat of this mismatch goes up, the brain initiates ACTIONS (usually nausea, vomiting and vertigo) to try to make you change your behavior.

What is NOT widely understood in the health and fitness world (which we specialize in teaching) is that there are many forms of mild sensory mismatch that are not completely debilitating like motion sickness, but are still creating significant disturbances in movement and pain for our clients and athletes.


thE visual systEm anatomy & function

For our purposes in this course, we want to look at the visual system primarily from a muscular and reflexive perspective. While the neurology of visual processing is incredibly important to understand, we will deal with the training of visual skills and visual processing in S-Phase. In this course, we are setting the stage for better visual skills by insuring proper muscular and reflexive actions of the eyes are being evaluated and trained.

To put this perspective, just as you would not ignore a given set of muscles in any training program (e.g. you would likely never choose to NOT train the hamstrings) we CANNOT ignore the muscular training of the eye!

The fact is that the visual system is depends upon good muscular activity in order to function correctly.

You have six primary extraocular (outside the eye) muscles that we need to understand.

1. Superior Rectus2. Inferior Rectus3. Medial Rectus4. Lateral Rectus5. Superior Oblique6. Inferior Oblique

Each one of these muscles has multiple actions that it participates in. For our purposes, we are going to look at and learn the actions of these muscles in a way that is consistent with the assessments that we teach in this course and in the 9S: Structure course.

eye Muscles Whose Function is the saMe as their Names:

Superior Rectus (Pulls Eye Up)Inferior Rectus (Pulls Eye Down)Medial Rectus (Pulls Eye In)Lateral Rectus (Pulls Eye Out)

eye Muscles Whose Function is OPPOSiTE of their Names:

Inferior Oblique (Pulls Eye up and In)Superior Oblique (Pulls Eye Down and In)

TaKe a looK aT This charT – iT is whaT you neeD To learn

To help you with this process, there is a simple naming/eye movement convention that you can follow:

Extrinsic eye muscles, cranial nerve innervation, and the eyeball movement


EyE musclE functions

There are two primary classifications of the eye movements in the human body:

1. Gaze stabilization2. Gaze shifting

Gaze stabilization is exactly what it sounds like: the ability to keep the eyes still or fixed on a target.

Gaze shifting is the ability to move the eyes in all directions to follow an object or focus on a new target.

Poor muscular function will cause problems in both types of eye movements.

In this certification, we will test and correct muscular issues with the eyes to improve both our gaze stabilization and gaze shifting abilities.

i-phasE visual systEm as-

sEssmEnts

Based on what we have covered about the visual system’s anatomy, we now want to look at the I-Phase assessments for this system. The three basic assessments we will use are:

1. 9 Position Gaze stabilization - We will first test their ability to stabilize their eyes.

2. 8 Position Gaze shifting - We will then test their ability to follow a moving target successfully.


9 posiTion gaze sTaBilizaTion

Gaze stabilization is the ability to fixate on a target and maintain a fixation without deviation. While this may seem like an incredibly simple assessment, it is one of the most important ones that you can perform with your clients. Here is how we will perform this assessment:

1. You will stand in front of your client.

2. They will stand in either a neutral stance or with their feet together, side-by-side.

3. You will hold a target slightly beyond arms reach directly in front of your client and instruct them to look at the target until you tell them to stop.

4. Watch their eyes as they attempt to focus on the target you have given them. You must remain alert because an inability to do gaze stabilization usually results in very small, fast movements of the eyes off the target and then back onto it.

5. It is very common with people that struggle with gaze stabilization to notice excessive facial tension, eyelid flutter, excessive blinking, or watering of the eyes as they attempt to look at the target.

6. You should record the amount of time they are able to gaze stabilize on the target in seconds. For our athletes, the goal for the stabilization exercises is 30 seconds without deviation.

7. Once you have performed this assessment in a neutral position, you will then perform the same test in each of the eight compass positions.a. Upb. Downc. Rightd. Lefte. Up and Rightf. Up and Leftg. Down and Righth. Down and Left

8. Take special note, as it is highly likely that you will find one or more positions in which your athlete struggles to do good gaze stabilization.


8 posiTion gaze shiFTing

1. For this assessment, you will be standing in front of your client with a visual target (pen, etc.) for them to follow.

2. They will be standing in either a neutral stance or with the feet together.

3. You will have your athlete attempt to SMOOTHLY FOLLOW the target as you move it from neutral into one of the eight compass positions below and then back to neutral:

a. Upb. Downc. Rightd. Lefte. Up and Rightf. Up and Leftg. Down and Righth. Down and Left

4. You should perform 3 repetitions in each of the eight positions.

5. You will be watching for several different things:

a. Excessive body-sway.b. Poorly coordinated movement of the eyes. This will usually be seen as a stuttering, or jumping

type of motion that prevents them from smoothly following the target.c. Signs of startle.


thE vEstibular systEm

The next piece of the neurophysiologic puzzle of elite movement that we need to study is the inner ear or vestibular system. This incredibly small, yet precisely functioning, system is absolutely essential to everything that you do. We are going to break it down into manageable parts so that we can discuss and understand its function.

where Does iT live?

The vestibular organs are encased in bone deep inside the cranium. The image below is from above the skull looking down. If we were to view the vestibular organs from the front, they would lie almost directly behind the orbit of the eye.


whaT are The vesTiBular sysTeM’s parTs?

The primary parts of the vestibular system then you need to know for this course are:

1. The Semicircular Canals (Horizontal, Anterior, Posterior)2. The Otolith Organs (Utricle, Saccule)3. The Vestibulocochlear nerve

whaT is iTs JoB?

To begin, you need to understand that your vestibular system is designed to answer two primary questions:

1. Which way is up?2. Which way am I going?

In other words, the vestibular system is your on-board balance system that is designed to:

1. Tell you where you are in space,2. Tell you what direction you are moving3. Help you keep your balance in all situations4. Tell your postural muscles what to do reflexively.

Your inner ear is the first system to develop neurologically as a fetus so that we come into the world already having learned quite a bit about the one constant force in our life – gravity.


thE sEmicircular canals

You have three of these canals as a part of each inner ear. In other words, you have 6 total - 3 on each side your head. Each canal has a name based on its position in relationship to the other two canals:

1. Horizontal2. Superior/Anterior3. Posterior

These canals are oriented at 90° to one another. As a result, they can signal head movement in any plane or combinations of planes.

whaT The seMicircular canals Do

Two INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT tasks:

1. They Sense Head Motion and Velocity of Movement2. Enable the VOR (Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex) – This is all about reflexive GAZE STABILIZATION!

What most people do not realize is that the function of your eyes is INTIMATELY CONNECTED to the function of your inner ear and vice versa. So poor visual function can be incredibly detrimental to inner ear function while inner ear injury or dysfunction can wreak havoc on your eyes!


how Do The canals worK?

Let’s start this part of the discussion by looking at how the semicircular canals sense head movement.

For this function, the canals are fairly easy to understand. Each canal is formed by bone and filled with a thick gel kind of like Jell-O called endolymph. At the bottom of each canal, because they form a circle or loop, there is an enlarged bulb called the ampulla. Sitting inside the ampulla is a sail shaped structure called the cupula. Attached to the bottom of the cupula is a nerve. When the head moves, this causes the fluid in the ear to bend the sail in one direction or the other. Depending on which direction the sail bends, the nerve either fires with greater or lesser frequency.

The only tricky part here is that no single canal is designed to work alone! They all have partners on the opposite side of the head. Together they are called “paired canals” and they work in what is called a PUSH/PULL arrangement..

• Horizontal Canals: Rotation in the horizontal plane• Left Anterior and Right Posterior Canals (LARP): Rotation in the vertical plane skewed 45 anteriorly to the left.• Right Anterior and Left Posterior Canals (RALP): Rotation in the vertical plane skewed 45 anteriorly to the right.

Let’s look at the horizontal canals, as they are the easiest to understand. The right and left horizontal canals are responsible for telling the brain when we rotate our heads right and left. Here’s how it works:

1. If you turn your head to the right, the fluid in your RIGHT HORIZONTAL CANAL bends the sail (cupula) in a direction that INCREASES the firing rate in the RIGHT vestibulocochlear nerve.

2. At the same time, the fluid in your LEFT HORIZONTAL CANAL bends its sail in a direction that DECREASES the firing rate in the LEFT vestibulocochlear nerve.

3. Your brain INTERPRETS this change in signaling from each ear as, “Hey, I just turned my head right.”

4. Your brain will ALSO COMPARE this vestibular input with input from the visual and proprioceptive systems to make sure that all three are saying the same thing.

5. Here’s where a HUGE problem often occurs. Imagine that your client had an injury (even a mild one) to his right inner ear. The injury causes the firing rate to be CONSTANTLY DECREASED. What this would mean over time is that the brain would be getting mixed signals and INCREASED THREAT FROM MOVEMENT.


vEstibular systEm assEssmEnts

Based on what we have covered about vestibular anatomy, we now want to look at the I-Phase assessments for this system. The basic assessment we will use for this is called The Z-Health Balance Progression.

Before we begin, remember that in order to stimulate the semicircular canals HEAD MOVEMENT is required (because of where they are located in the skull). Any “balance training” that causes the athlete to stabilize the head may improve some types of balance, but ultimately will fall short of training the full capacity of the vestibular system.

Here’s how you’ll perform this assessment and use it as a training drill:

The z-healTh Balance progression

1. You will stand in front of your client.

2. They will stand in one of the stances below. If you are using this as an assessment for the first time, they should begin in the easiest stance.

a. Standing on 2 legs, eyes open (easiest)b. Standing on 2 legs, eyes closedc. Standing on 1 leg, eyes opend. Standing on 1 leg, eyes closed (hardest)

3. You will ask the client to perfom a quick, snappy head movement from the list below and hold that postiion for 10-15 seconds. Assess if the client can successfully hold the head movement and stance, then have them reset to a neutral head position.

a. Rotation Rightb. Rotation Leftc. Tilting Rightd. Tilting Lefte. Look Up (Extension)f. Look Down (Flexion)

4. Perform each head movement in a stance one time before progressing to a more difficult stance.

5. This progression becomes the drill for the client to perform at home. You may continue to increase or decrease the difficulty of the stance as needed over time.


i-phasE training Drills



1. How the Brain Works - Prediction, Pattern Recognition and Safety2. What happens when it can’t predict accurately?

a. Painb. Weaknessc. Fatigued. Z-Health is different because we built this system based on how the brain works.e. Everything we do is to make us better at predicting

3. The Movement Templatea. The SAID Principleb. Making Movement Predictable for Safety and Performancec. Assessing Clients in Motion

4. The 3 Systems Used for Predictiona. Visualb. Vestibularc. Proprioceptive (We spent time on this yesterday)

5. Sensory Mismatcha. When all three systems are not in agreementb. What system “suffers” the most? Usually the proprioceptive system (Neural Heirarchy)

6. Vision System Basicsa. Biomechanics – Muscle Strength and Flexibilityb. Neurology – Visual Reflexes – Talk about these TOMORROW

7. Testing the Visual Systema. 8 Position Gaze Shiftingb. Gaze Stabilization

8. Vestibular System Basicsa. The 2 Questions it Answers

i. Which way is up?ii. Which way am I going?

b. Basic Partsc. Basic Function (Push/Pull)

9. Testing the Vestibular Systema. Head Movements

i. Rotationsii. Tiltsiii. Flexions/Extensions

b. Stancesi. 2 Leg, Eyes Openii. 2 Leg, Eyes Closediii. 1 Leg, Eyes Openiv. 1 Leg, Eyes Closed

10. Level 2 Joint Mobility Exercises (I-Phase Drills)a. Tiltsb. CC Kneesc. CC Hipsd. CC Pelvise. Lumbar Circlesf. Elbows


Day 2 notEs


To fully understand what S-Phase is, you must realize that an enormous disservice has been perpetrated on virtually every athlete that you meet.

What is this disservice? Simply put, there is virtually no focus on high-level athletic skill development for 98%+ of the athletes we encounter. Whether amateur or professional, the prevailing opinion seems to be, “If you’ve got it you’ve got it and if you don’t – you’re just not among the gifted elite.”

While to some extent it is impossible to deny the impact of genetics and a growth environment that nurtures athleticism, the truth is that movement is a skill – and skills are trainable.

In our experience, just as very few people are taught to MOVE well in their daily lives, even fewer athletes are taught to MOVE well as athletes. As a result, in today’s sports culture, excellence, in almost every instance, is far more about attrition than excellent movement coaching or technical development.

We believe that this is an enormous problem because expertise research consistently tells us that in the vast majority of cases natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret lies in demanding practice and work. This means that every athlete we encounter – whether an office athlete or Olympic champion – can continue to improve through intelligent practice!

The S-Phase Certification will help you learn the basic skill sets that form the foundation of virtually all athletic movement. Once you understand these concepts and skills, how to assess them and how to drill them, you will be equipped to work with virtually ANYONE who wishes to function at the highest possible level. As a result, you can think of S-Phase as the R-Phase of athleticism.

Just like R-Phase, S-Phase will offer you multiple assessment processes and a toolbox of drills to help you assist your athletes in moving closer to their true potential. The information in S-Phase is so powerful that we think of this certification as giving you and your athletes an unfair advantage in competition and in life.

What is s-phasE?


BuT My clienTs aren’T “real” aThleTes

One of the most common concerns we hear from Z-Health professionals attending S-Phase is this:

“I understand that in Z-Health we say that everyone is an athlete, but my clients are just average fitness clients – not ‘real’ athletes. What does S-Phase offer them?”

We’re so glad you asked! To best answer this question, let’s take a quick look at the list of the 4 things that athletes must do well.

What all athlEtEs must

bE ablE to Do WEll

1. see Well – Regardless of the sport or activity, great visual skills tend to be a pre-requisite for high performance. Poor vision has ramifications that reach into every facet of life – from posture, pain and movement issues all the way to reading comprehension, cognition and even emotional states. Knowing that vision skills are pervasive in every aspect of life, it should be clear that regardless of the “sport” your athlete plays, better visual capacity can lead to better performance.

2. BAlANcE WEll – As you think back to I-Phase, you will hopefully remember that from a neurological perspective it is very difficult to separate vision from balance. The fact is that our relationship to gravity is the single most profound, long-term “designer” of our body. As a result, even small inconsistencies or problems in our balance system can have a huge impact on our overall performance in life. So, once again, regardless of your athlete’s sport of choice – a healthy, functional balance system is a huge key to forward progress.

3. mOvE WEll – We have been discussing movement since your very first introduction to Z-Health so it should come as no surprise that we will continue to focus on ultra-efficient movement skill development in S-Phase. There are four really important reasons from our perspective that every client you have can benefit from learning better athletic movement skills:

a. Developing athletic skills increases our available training options.

b. Somewhat surprisingly, athletic movement practice can help quickly decrease or even eliminate pain in some clients who have not responded to R & I-Phase work.

c. Athletic movement brings FUN into the fitness equation.

d. Finally, and most obviously, building athletic movement skills can make us much better at PLAYING sports.

4. iNteGrate Well – As you look at the many tasks that our athletes must perform in any given day, it should be obvious that virtually everything that we do is an ongoing integration challenge. Even something as “simple” as taking a walk with the kids involves “all” of us – presenting challenges to our motor, emotional and cognitive skills sets. Being able to efficiently manage (integrate) all of these tasks is the goal of high-level brain health and function. We believe that S-Phase training allows us to intelligently and progressively challenge our athletes’ ability to integrate their total body function. Just as vision, balance and movement are skills – so is integration. As a result, we need to train it to help our athletes optimize their performance in life.


s-phasE vision training

Vision includes not just the mechanics of vision and the basic neural pathways, but also the interpretation of what is seen in the brain. Athletes have some very unique vi-sual characteristics that we can both assess and train in order to improve performance and assist in rehabilitation.

To train the visual system, we must build upon the mechanical and anatomical understanding of how the eyes work, which we discussed earlier, and begin to examine what role the brain plays in the interpretation of what is seen. In each of our visual drills from S-Phase, we will assess how quickly and accurately the brain can take in, understand, and respond to visual stimulus, and we will train these skills in our own training and with our athletes. We have one visual reflex assessment to perform before we begin, and then five vision drills that we’ll learn in this course:

1. Pencil Pushups2. Pencil Pushups with Near/Far Focusing3. Pencil Pushups with Peripheral Vision4. letterball tracking5. Hand/eye and Foot/eye coordination

visual Training & ThreaT MoDulaTion

In basic terms, if an athlete is in pain or is suffering from some type of injury that is interfering with their activity (poor strength, poor mobility, etc) then they generally need to do drills to reduce the threat that their nervous system is experiencing. We call this threat modulation.

On the other hand, if an athlete is undertaking vision drills in order to improve their sports performance, they generally need to have the threat increased so they can create adaptations to it. We call this threat inoculation or threat adaptation.

As we move from threat modulation into threat inoculation and threat adaptation, the priorities begin to change. This requires a good understanding of the visual requirements of different sports, as well as appropriate training drills.

Practically speaking, this means that if your client is suffering from a visual deficit that is creating an ongoing movement threat, deal with that first (regardless of the particular visual skills’ applicability within their sport). Only after that do we want to switch our focus to sports-oriented training processes. The simple phrase to use to remember this concept is:


visual rEflExEs

The same muscles that give us the ability to gaze stabilize and gaze shift (from I-Phase) ALSO cause reflexive muscular facilitation and inhibition patterns in the body that help or hinder our posture and movement. Unfortunately, chronically poor use of the eyes, which causes muscular de-conditioning, can cause these reflexes to perform aberrantly, leading to further movement issues.

Here are the four basic patterns of reflexes we are interested in:

• Eyes Up – Facilitates the muscles that create Extension

• Eyes Down – Facilitates the muscles that create Flexion

• Eyes Right – Facilitates the muscles that create Right Rotation, Right Extension, Left Flexion

• Eyes Left – Facilitates the muscles that create Left Rotation, Left Extension, Right Flexion

The proper function of these reflexes can be easily assesses utilizing one of the following methods along with eye movement:

1. Muscle Testing2. Range of Motion Testing


pEncil pushups (convErgEncE & DivErgEncE)

Vergence refers to the ability for an athlete to “cross” and “uncross” the eyes accurately. This allows an athlete to maintain single focus from near to far and far to near, so that he or she can keep their eyes on the target as it comes closer or goes farther away.

proceDure:

1. Tell the athlete to keep his/her head still.2. Hold the tip of a pencil or pen two feet in front of the athlete’s face at nose level.3. Slowly move the tip of the pencil in toward the nose until the athlete says “double” indicating he is

now seeing two tips of the pencil instead of one.4. Measure the distance between the tip of the pencil and the athlete’s nose.5. Repeat two more times and take the average of the measurements.6. Most athletes should be able to avoid double vision until the pencil tip reaches their nose.7. The assessment becomes the drill for the athlete to continue practicing this skill.

pEncil pushup With variations

1. Near/Far Focal changes - While the athlete is performing the drill, have them quickly snap their eyes from the pencil to a target far in the distance, and then quickly back to the pencil. Repeat for 5-6 target switches.

2. Peripheral Vision awareness - While the athlete is performing the drill, the coach will move his or her hand into the athlete’s peripheral field. The athlete will say “now” when they become aware of the motion. The coach should challenge both sides of the athlete’s body - making sure to challenge at the level of the eyes as well as above and below.


lEttErball tracking

Eye tracking involves the ability to “keep your eye on the ball”. It involves smooth, coordinated pursuit movements of the eyes. This test involves a smooth, rhythmic game of catch between the coach and athlete using the following parameters.

The coach will be watching the athlete to see that she keeps her eyes on the ball at all times. This is most easily noted by watching the head follow the direction of the ball as it is in flight and as it is caught. If the athlete is “cheating” by predicting where the ball will go, or if she is demonstrating signs of startle (looking away, closing the eyes, or demonstrating an actual startle reflex) then the coach should modify the drill to make it less challenging. Once the athlete has practiced several repetitions, the coach may increase the difficulty of the drill by adding speed, spin, or additional movement challenges to the drill.

For each test count the total number of catches out of ten throws:

1. Both Eyes, Both Hands2. Both Eyes, Alternating Hands3. Single Eye, Both Hands4. Single Eye, Alternating Hands


hanD-EyE anD foot-EyE coorDination tEst

One of the hallmarks of excellent athletes is intersystem coordination. This series of simple tests allows us to evaluate both hand-eye and foot-eye coordination.

proceDure:

1. Using what are known as coordination charts (or VDP charts from sports vision), the athlete will call out which side of the line the stars are on right, left, or middle. Average performance on this task should be 80-120/minute.

2. After this is mastered, the athlete taps the right-hand to indicate that the stars are on the right, taps the left to indicate the star is on the left and claps the hands together to indicate the star is in the middle. Average performance on this task should be 80-120/minute.

3. The next progression concentrates on the feet. The athlete uses the same procedures as above but now the square represents the feet. (Chart 2) Average performance on this task is typically 40-60/minute.

4. The next progression combines movements of the hand and feet. (Chart 3) Average performance on this task is typically 30-40/minute.

5. This final level of the drill combines eye, hand and foot coordination. Using the same instructions as before, use the advanced charts which require simultaneous taps of the foot and hand. (Chart 4) Average performance on this task is typically 20-30/minute.


s-phasE movEmEnt Drills

Just as in I-Phase, the movement drills of S-Phase come from the process of reverse engineering the movement of elite performers. Regardless of the sport, there are commonalities of movement that we see in superior athletes. The awesome news is that once we build greater body control and coordination (a better body map) using R- and I-Phasemovements, we own the basic building blocks to develop high-level athletic movements as well.

The aThleTic vocaBulary

Every person (athlete) needs to be able to do 5 basic things to both survive life AND perform at a high level:

1. stand – Learning the basics of athletic movement begins with mastering how to STAND ATHLETICALLY (Even though your stance may be laying on the ground). While many people overlook this fundamental concept, your standing positions, or stances, are the start of everything that you do. If you have faulty stance mechanics, there is a very high likelihood that you will have faulty movement mechanics as well. So, learning to stand correctly, while not as “exciting” for many people, is a practice worthy of your time and attention! In this course we will cover two primary stances:

a. static athletic ready stanceb. Dynamic athletic ready stance

2. start – Regardless of what “stance” you find ourself in, you have to be able to initiate motion from it – IN ANY DIRECTION. We teach a number of different starting techniques in the Z-Health curriculum, but all of them are built out of understanding the basics of how to generate force with the limbs of the body intothe ground most efficiently. Thankfully, once you understand stance mechanics, you have a great foundation for how to START movement.


3. run – Of all of the coveted attributes for athletes, running is perhaps number one. However, it is important to realize that endurance running and sprinting are completely different skills – each with its own unique set of requirements. One of the biggest mistakes people make in building their running skill is assuming that because they CAN run, they have mastered the process. Nothing could be further from the truth. Elite level running is the result of learning and applying excellent technique and approaching it as a SKILL that needs constant training and refinement.

4. change Direction – Also known as agility, the ability to change direction smoothly is a key attribute for virtually all athletes. Whether you are changing direction from a stance (static) or while in motion, the skill of changing direction fluidly separates the great from the good. Just like all the other skills mentioned above, the elite athleticism skill of changing direction can be reverse engineered down to just a few movements that can be learned and trained by virtually anyone – with huge benefits! In this course, we’ll be teaching one of the most foundational direction-changing transitions for athletes, called the Hip Turn.

5. stop – Finally, athletes must be able to SLOW DOWN and STOP their movement at will. In the sports world this is known as deceleration and is considered by many experts to be the key in injury prevention. Stopping a bodythat is in motion requires a delicate balance of strength, body control and balance and should be trained just as much as any of the other athletic attributes, if not more. Again, we’ll address the most basic building block of deceleration andstopping in this course, called the T-Step.


thE static athlEtic rEaDy stancE

Learning this stance is vital to developing virtually all athletic movement patterns, as it will allow the athlete to move (from this standing position) in any direction, or to change the direction he is facing very quickly.

here are The coMponenT parTs

1. Feet should be 1.5x shoulder width apart – widening the base of support.

2. Weight should be carried on the big toe side of the foot with weight distributed toward the ball of the foot.

3. The knees should be bent and “inside” the feet, forming a straight line through the tibia (See Pictures)

4. The hips should be flexed into a comfortable “mini-squat” position – thereby bringing the center of gravity closer to the base of support.

5. The spine should be aligned and lengthened with the shoulders over the knees.

6. Arms should be held in a sports appropriate position.

7. Head and neck should be aligned with the eyes focused on a target.

The DynaMic aThleTic reaDy sTance

Similar to the Static Athletic Ready Stance, the Dynamic Athletic Ready will allow the athlete to move in any direction or change the direction he is facing. The only difference is that movement is already part of the stance - as is required by many sports. Usually this movement is a rocking from side-to-side, or is a transitional movement from forward motion into a direction change (consider sharp direction changes in tennis, soccer, or volleyball for examples).


thE t-stEp

In most sports it is necessary to make quick decisions about which direction to go. One of the most important steps to learn to facilitate this skill is the T-Step. You can think of this step as a transitional movement from a forward run into the static or dynamic athletic ready stance.

seTTing up The T-sTep

1. Begin walking or running forward.

2. As you make the decision to stop and change direction, quickly “drop” from a running position, splitting the legs out to each side and landing in the static athletic ready position.

3. The drop should be done quickly with the feet just barely clearing the ground, being careful not to jump up into the air.

4. What is essential in the movement is to maintain good control of the body’s center of gravity and move it closer to the base of support (usually closer to the ground) as quickly as possible.

5. The “feel” of this movement is that the center of gravity “freezes” in motion and the legs simply widen out to maintain balance.


thE hip turn

In more traditional sports training, athletes are taught what is called a pivot step to create a change of direction. Unfortu-nately, the pivot step is slow and cumbersome to most athletes. A better, and faster, way to create a change of direction is by learning what is called the hip turn.

Once this motion is learned, the athlete will use it constantly as it is very explosive in nature.

using The hip Turn

1. Begin in a Static Athletic Ready Stance.

2. Initiate the hip turn by jumping very slightly, allowing the feet to just clear the ground.

3. Simultaneously, rapidly rotate the hips to a position in which the pelvis is squarely facing the intended direction of movement.

4. As the pelvis reaches the correct position, split the legs apart, landing in a plyo step position.

5. Explode out of the plyo step position in the new direction of travel.


combination Drills

Throughout this course we have talked about the brain’s ability to integrate input from all of the systems of the body in an elegant, coordinated way to achieve high-level performance in life. In Z-Health this integration process initially culmi-nates in the combination drills of S-Phase. In these drills, we challenge the body and brain with different forms of visual, vestibular and proprioceptive inputs that require high levels of individual skill competency (e.g. seeing well) as well as high levels of integration. The simplest way to think of the S-Phase drill combinations is to compare the process toweight training.

For example, if I have an athlete STAND in a simple static athletic ready stance, START jogging for-ward, and STOP in a T-Step as they SEE a ball being thrown to them to catch – this is comparable to a light-ly loaded bar on a bench press.

If instead I have the athlete laying on their back on the ground (their STANCE), rolling to their stomach, pushing up into a four point stance (their START), initiating a sprint (RUN), performing a T-Step and Hip Turn (CHANGE OF DIRECTION) at a cone, and then performing another T-Step (STOP – this is akin to adding a couple of heavy plates to the bar in the firstexample.

Combination drills are an amazing way to increase training intensity and efficiency while still working on developing elite movement mechanics.

Finally, drill combinations can be utilized in many forms. They can create a quick and fun warm-up, be used in an interval fashion, interspersed with strength training exercises, designed to simulate sports-specific skills, or utilized in any other creative use you can imagine – bringing a great deal of both skill development and fun into the training environment.

pracTicing coMBinaTion Drills

In this course, we will practice two combination drills to give you an opportunity to experience the fun and skill that can be developed:

1. T-Step -> letter Ball catching2. Peripheral vision -> Hip Turn -> letter Ball catching



1. Days 1 & 2 Review2. What is Day 3 About?

a. Giving Clients More Optionsb. Getting rid of painc. Fun ways to build better movement maps

3. Athleticism – The Basic Skillsa. See Wellb. Balance Wellc. Move Welld. Integrate Well

4. Sports Vision Drillsa. Eye Reflex Testing

i. Muscle Test – Hip Flexorsii. Biceps

5. Pencil Pushupsb. Convergence Version (Standard)

i. Near/Far Variablesii. Peripheral Awareness Variables

c. Tracking Skills - Letter Ball Catchingd. Hand/Eye Coordination Drills

6. Sports Balance Drillsa. I-Phase Balance Training Series – (You did these yesterday)

7. Sports Movement Drillsa. In S-Phase we’ve reverse engineered elite athletics so that we can teach “elite skills to “normal” people.b. There is an athletic “vocabulary” that is easy to breakdown and teach. In general, athletes must be able to:

i. Standii. Startiii. Runiv. Change Directionv. Stop

c. 3 movements out of the Z-Health Sports Movement Library:i. Static Athletic Readyii. T-Stepiii. Hip Turn

8. Combination Drillsa. Just like language, once you have the basic building blocks, you can create masterpieces.b. Think of these combination drills as ways to “add weight to the bar” – they are progressions

i. T-Step/Letter Ballii. Peripheral Vision/Hip Turn/Letter Ball


Day 3 notEs


aDDitional notEs


for furthEr rEaDing

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” - Albert Schweitzer

Here are our recommendations on where to start your further reading and research. Additionally, a research archive is available on our website and is available to the public at http://zhealth.net/reference-library

The Brain That ChangesItself by Norman Doidge is afantastic book filled withscientific and anecdotalevidence of the brain’s ability to change – sometimes inunbelievable ways.

The Body Has a Mind of ItsOwn by Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee will give you insight into the virtual world of the brain.

The Talent Code by DanielCoyle. Talent is normallythought of as “You’ve eithergot it or you don’t”. Thisbook proves otherwise,showing that there is amethod of practice based on the brain’s inner workings that leads to astonishing levels of success.

Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense by Scott McCredie is a wonderful, deeper-than-usual introduc-tion to the vestibular system and balance. It’s filled with science and anecdotalstories of balance issues and training.

Explain Pain by David Butlerand Lorimer Moseley is anexcellent read on painscience and sensorymismatch. As an introduction for clients and athletes, it can’t be beat.


about Dr. Eric cobb

The creator and founder of Z-Health Performance Solutions, LLC, Dr. Eric Cobb is one of the world’s foremost experts in utilizing the neurology of movement to create extraordinary changes throughout the human body.

A chiropractic physician, Dr Cobb has a degree in human biology and has done post-graduate studies in a variety of ar-eas, including kinesiology, musculoskeletal trauma, and advanced soft tissue techniques. The unique system he teaches consistently allows Z-Health practitioners to produce instant reductions in pain, rehabilitation of injuries and amazing performance improvements in athletes, as well as individuals from all walks of life.

Dr. Cobb’s passion for human performance and teaching the practical implementation of complex training concepts comes through in the dynamic, entertaining educational programs and professional certifications he presents worldwide. Dr. Cobb is also a life-long martial artist and combatives trainer with deep ties to the military and law enforcement com-munities.

Dr. Cobb’s primary responsibility is to spread the word about Z-Health, traveling the country, teaching workshops and certification courses, and working with select individuals and athletes. Dr. Cobb also stays busy developing new prod-ucts and innovative methods for educating others about Z-Health concepts.

essentials of elite performance 2.0 course manual

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