CK-FMS Review

A few of my friends/colleauges have requested that I write up a review of my recent experience at the CK-FMS cert.  Doing this helps me organize my thoughts and comprehend what I have learned from a seminar.  Here you go:

This past weekend, I attended the CK-FMS in St. Paul Minnesota.  For those that may be unfamiliar, the CK-FMS is a certification that is provided by Dragondoor in conjunction with Gray Cook- founder of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) and Brett Jones- who is heavily involved with the FMS and the RKC community.  The CK-FMS is 4-days long and consists of lectures and practical sessions on the FMS screen and the accompanying corrective exercises.  That is the most general description of it in the sense that there is way more to it than learning the FMS the correctives.

I’ve always been a supporter of the FMS.  I think it was back in 2005 when I first screened my athletes.  Back then, after I screened them, I didn’t know what to do with the results.  This is something that I’ve been trying to figure out for the longest time.  I’ve been to FMS courses, have watched all the “Secrets” series, and have seen Gray speak many times through Perform Better.  It wasn’t until this weekend that I can say with full conviction “Now I know what to do and how I can use it with my guys”.

Why didn’t I get it?  Maybe because in the back of my mind, I thought that the FMS was impractical in the team setting.  I thought I could use it with my athletes but I really could never “get it” and operate it as a system.  I actually still have an article that I never did finish about using the FMS in the team sport setting on my computer.  It started out with great intentions, but I never finished it because I never could comprehend how to really use it. All I know is that one season; I screened all of my athletes.  I then simply incorporated the in-season strength and conditioning program.  At the end of the season, I looked at who was hurt during the season from an overuse injury perspective.  The guys who were hurt did have some asymmetries on their FMS.  I’m not a brain surgeon by any means; however, this showed me that if I knew what to do with the info, maybe there were some things we could’ve done to prevent.  The point is that the FMS to me has been and continuous to be a learning process.  The goal has always been and continues to be the perfect program for injury prevention and performance.  The FMS simply gives you a compass on which direction to go first in the journey.  The reality is that a score of 14 with symmetrical scores down the board is ok.  Asymmetries need to be addressed.

What also made this course really good was that the RKC community was involved.  Like I’ve written before, my RKC weekend experience was a phenomenal experience.  There are some really good people at these events that I have the outmost respect for.  This includes not only the instructors, but the Dragondoor staff and the students.  I met some really cool people at this event.

Since it was an RKC event, I had the opportunity to re-test my RKC standards which included having proficient technique in the lifts, doing 5 pull ups, and also performing the 100-rep snatch test in 5 minutes.  I was very happy to pass all of these, however what I think is more important is the fact that RKC’s are not only being tested to show that they can do it.  It is so that they can coach their athletes/clients in them proficiently.  Another reason why I think the RKC is an outstanding cert.

One of the highlights for me at the CK-FMS was further solidifying or “Cementing” (which is a word that was used by Brett Jones many times throughout the course- think “Myelinate” from the book Talent Code) why I like the Get Up and more importantly, why it’s good for my clients. It is amazing how much you can do with the different steps of the Get up.  When we look at exercises such as the Get Up and the Bretzel (which I will be writing a blog post/article on soon), we can further appreciate them more as just exercises.  They are actually screens as well.

What I have taken from this experience is that I am more confident in my screening and application of corrective exercises.  I own the map.  Also, as an RKC, and when it comes to my own training and coaching skills, I am setting out to achieve RKC-2 certification. With the new standards now set for that cert, it is going to be a challenge.  Simple but not easy.