This is a review of the Z-Health R-Phase Certification course that was held in Edinburgh the first week of Sept, 2008.
In the review i hope to address the Z Health approach, at least as i understand it so far, and in particular look at how the course is both distinct from the R Phase DVDs and integrates with them.
The motivation for this review is two fold:
Bottom line: from my experience practicing the basic z mobility drills over the past months, from participating in the very intense 6 day, 9 hour a day sessions of the certification, and from one on one time with Eric Cobb (z developer) i'd recommend z to anyone who has to move, whether that movement is to get in and out of chairs, play an instrument, type at a keyboard or leap tall buildings in a single bound.
So what's Z Health anyway? Read on
Z is... Z is a complete approach to the body that focuses on us as dynamic beings. In other words, we're designed (evolved) to move - whether that movement is through space in locomotion, or is movement from and into a variety of positions - sitting, standing, reclining etc, we move. It's difficult to think of anything we do that does not move our bodies. Even at rest, breathing moves the ribs; blood moves through our veins. Indeed, we have highly developed sensory systems simply to maintain our location in space. Thought of in this way, it's worth asking the question: since movement is SO fundamental, what actually enables us to move? and conversely, what inhibits this movement?
How do we move? Or what enables us to move. Yes absolutely, the mechanics of the body - muscles moving bones; oxygen and fuel feeding muscles and growth - are important to the generation of a system that is mechanically able to move, but what keeps us balanced as we move? what keeps the joints aligned; the muscles firing correctly - the whole thing coordinated? The brain for sure is the uber answer, but the nervous system is the brain extended: it is the messaging system of network, responding to, and adjusting around information it receives on numerous levels at all times. Proprioception, vestibular and visual systems all contribute to keep us moving effectively and efficiently.
The critical insight that Z foregrounds is that the nervous system is like the One Ring to Rule Them All - everything responds to the nervous system. A happy nervous system; a happy person. That seems trite, but it's profound, especially if, perhaps like me, your focus on getting healthy, has been about Resistance Training to work the muscles and Cardio/Intervals to work the heart and lungs. Such an approach says a good day's workout means lift some weights then go hit the bike to burn some fat. You may, again if you're like me, have some inclining that in working out for any period of time "the central nervous system can get fried and you go into overtraining, and you now suck and need to back way off" The prescription has been to avoid these evils, do something nice for your nervous system regularly, like yoga once a week or regular joint mobility (whatever that is - go ahead - ask someone to define "joint mobility" most of us don't have a good answer as to either what it is, or exactly WHY it's important).
While i've accepted this prescription, i admit, it's not something that's made sense to me. I'm still not really sure what frying the central nervous system is, and detecting overtraining, for the most part is something one only seems able to diagnose once it's happened (work in 2005 with olympic judo competitors could not detect it predictively - i'll find the study). So, encountering a system that focuses on the nervous system primarily rather than the muscleo-skeletal system has to date felt rather vague. Add in the notion of dynamic rather than static bodies, however, and it starts to make more sense. In the muscle-based health world, we often talk about the big muscles as "prime movers" - which usually means the main muscles involved in a particular move - but really, fundamentally - the nervous system is the uber prime mover. We know this: without a signal coming from the brain to innervate a muscle fiber, the muscle does not contract, movement doesn't happen. Ok, got that. But what does that tell us?
Most of us know that if a nerve is blocked or pinched, we experience pain or numbness - and that can certainly inhibit movement. But our amazing nervous system it turns out is far more subtle than that. In the Z health cert, we learn that our nerves comprise a variety of somatosensory receivers
if you've done something like the CSCS, you may only have heard of mechanoreceptors. These are pretty low level sensing approaches, to say nothing of the visual and vestibular (inner ear; balance) systems. And all of these systems are wired up, as Eric Cobb puts it, to support one thing: survival (not performance). Forget fight or flight. All this sophistication is wrapped up in the very binary detection of [THREAT || NO THREAT]. So guess what the response of these systems is when in doubt about an input - knowing that it has to pick one or the other? Yup: threat.
And with such an incredibly subtle system wrapped up in such a basic diagnosis for optimizing survival, what's going to happen when a very subtle signal says a body part is experiencing a disturbance that takes it away from optimal? Other systems get dialed back or taken off line as compensations get put in place. And all these compensations eventually demand attention in subtle (less muscle function on a press perhaps), or increasingly less subtle ways (big pain in the shoulder) to get attention to re-optimize. In all cases, MOVEMENT is effected: slow down; reduce power; restrict range; fire off pain. How well we move is a manifestation of, in a sense, our bodies ability to feel unthreatened.
Plug these thoughts back into training or simply daily efficacy of getting around, and it begins to seem like not only a good idea, but an important one to be able to keep our nervous system as happy (read "unthreatened") as possible. How do we do that? Z's R-phase work is a BIG BIG part of that HOW.
While Z speaks to not only the various receptors but the vestibular and visual systems as well, my experience in the R phase certification focused on the role of the mechano- and noci- receptors - and since there's LOTS going on there, that's what the rest of this piece will describe.
Mechanoreception is really important for adapting our body to what's going on with it in space; nocireception is very big on communicating if pain is happening somewhere and how to adapt to that. R phase is designed to help optimize clear mechanoreception and be aware of the effects of nocireception. What does that mean? good question. Here's the set up: if our mechanoreception is clear and uninterrupted at any site, we can imagine that our movement will be equally in balance. If we accept (and the R phase cert demonstrates this) that any interruption in mechanoreception signal causes a compensatory movement restriction, then having an approach that supports keeping those receptors sending good vibrations is a Good Thing.
Where are the most mechanoreceptors? Dr. Cobb tells us these are at the joints. Thus, enter the 23 series of joint mobilizing movements of R phase. The sequence is designed to move each joint of the body through it's complete range of motion. That's each joint of the body. Full range of motion. Cuz the response of any joint effects the ENTIRE body. In R phase, we learn the principle of the aurthrokinetic reflex that demonstrates this effect clearly - and immediately: mobile joints mean improved strength; non-mobile joints mean lessened strength.
"But i already do joint mobility"
This statement is something i've heard regularly when i've asked trainers i know if they'd be interested in either checking out Z health or doing the R phase certification: i already do joint mobility. The implicit note in that statement is that therefore, one doesn't therefore need "another" - equating R phase with all those other joint mobility systems out there. Fair enough, what's the difference?
A question we might ask of any system is "how do we know it's working"? Without knowing clearly what such a system is supposed to do, it's not possible to answer that question with any sophistication. I do not know what the claims are of other mobility systems, so let's focus on Z's R-phase, and if you use another mobility system, you might want to apply the same template.
So let's look at what i'll call the design claims of R phase:
So, does this mobility system move each joint through it's full range of motion? Yup: you can take the map of each r phase drill and apply it against anatomy to check each joint to see that from the foot to the jaw, each joint is moved. Each movement is built on up and down, right and left movements getting joined into full circles so that the full surface of the joint is mobilized.
Now the DVDs of R-phase and its abbreviated Neural Warm Up go through all of these drills. What going to the cert showed us was that getting exactly how to perform these moves so that they do open up the joints takes practice to identify what needs to move where and how. This observation is no different than any other system really, is it? For instance, the Enter the Kettlebell DVD is a great overview of how to swing a kettlebell, but nothing beats seeing a certified instructor to help tune the moves. Likewise, in R, having a certified instructor check out one's form is going to ensure that the drills (a) are targeting the joint and (b) are getting it moving. In the cert, we spend considerable time practicing providing exactly this level of attention to a joint's movement.
So movement of the joint is critical. Check. Having a certified z instructor check our movement through that range of motion is also good. Check. We learn these things in the certification: to appreciate the precision of the movement. See, in joint mobility without precision, we saw how we could actually close up a joint and thereby decrease movement. Precision is important.
Assessment: What Goes Where, When in General.
One of the biggie pieces of the R phase certification is to learn assessment: that is, which of the joint mobility drills are most appropriate for a given person? How would we know? how could we tell?An athlete may be feeling no pain, but is having a heck of a time with a military press. What could be going on? Or, more commonly, someone complains of pain somewhere, and that's stopping their effectiveness when they train, or just go about their day. Where does a trainer start? These are assessment issues - and this is especially where the z r-phase cert comes into its own beyond the DVD's: how to assess where a starting place in an assessment is that will let a trainer understand one's clients' movement and so help them move better.
Getting Specific: what goes where when, in training
The certification also spends time looking at how to extrapolate the R drills into sport specific application to maintain that open joint form dynamically. It also adds one more flavour onto joint mobility. Want a better pull up, better deadlift, better, more effective work on that reformer? Check out bone rhythm. Effortless strength. And as a flavouring of I-phase which looks at the vestibular and visual systems - want to improve that bicep curl immediately? look down. This is your body, with all the bits, not just the muscles, singing together.
The Pain Cry
Apparently trainers in the States have been helping clients deal with pain as part of their practice for a long time. This was news to me. My experience of trainers has been to learn how to lift or run or swim properly, and if someone had pain you sent them to An Expert, a doctor, a message therapist, their gp for an x-ray, a chiro for a cracking, etc etc.
What i've learned in the R phase certification - both seen with my colleagues taking the course, and experienced in my own body/pain habit - is that it is safe and fine to help a person look at their mobility. This is the nocireceptor thing: when a joint has been shut down, when an imbalance occurs in the system, pain showing up somewhere is an eventual (sometimes immediate) outcry. *A lot* of folks can be helped out of this kind of pain/discomfort with matching up the right movement with what will likely manifest as a movement issue.
One of the questions that came up during the cert is heck, we've only learned the first part of this system: when/how do we know when to punt, to say this is beyond us; let me recommend someone else. A good chunk of the cert assessment process was to learn to identify our own limits. We know when to punt. But the cool thing is, we also saw with our work with each other over the course of the week that we were able to help each other. That small diagnostics resulted in increased range of motion right away.
We're responsible for our own recovery
The even cooler and more critical thing is that we got a lot of theoretical and practical evidence to show that proactive, self-driven practice is more effective than someone else manipulating us; that self-driven, proactive practice in movement is more effective than static manipulation. This is not to say that there is not a role for health providers who lay hands on their clients and manipulate their bodies. What it does say - what we see explicitly in the z cert - is that when someone is shown what to do for themselves, and does it for themselves, works better, longer, more effectively. There's a reason for this: self-manipulation fires an order of magnitude more mechanoreceptors than manual manipulation. That's a lot more information for clearing a signal path. There's more reasons relating to pain signals relative to mechano-based signals, but suffice it to say, there ain't no hand waving in R phase - well, at least not in terms of explanations for why this stuff works.
The Engineering of Science into Holistic Movement Function.
Throughout the cert we had theory sessions to look at the science informing R phase. These sessions were mixed with Q&A, and practicums to see the theory in immediate practice. In other words, Z is a practical application - a well engineered approach - to apply the best thinking on the science of the nervous system, pain reception and movement.
Z, in other words, is not a hack; it's a principled system, and as such, there is a principled reason for each component of the system. As such, each step is repeatable; the results are predictable, but more than that, if someone asks "why" something works, there's a grounded answer that gets back to what is established about the WHOLE body.
Ironically, the resulting approach, in particular the assessment, feels far more organic than what one might suspect as an outcome of the scientific method where certain attributes are isolated from an environment to be tested. And yet that organic-ness makes sense, too. Consider an engine that's been designed to be fuel-efficient. Each component of that engine has been designed on science - from combustion to artificial intelligence to ensure not only the optimal size for the cylinders but the exact amount of fuel to enter each cylinder at the right time. When the thing works, its multiple components operate as a single entity. When one thing is off, however, the effects can ricochet through the whole system - either immediately or progressively.
That analogy is not perfect: we are far more complex systems than even the finest engines. But the translation of science to engineering is accurate. Z is based on science, on tested principles of a rational system. A system informed by/grounded in science is engineering. Engineering is the application of science, whether that's software engineering, chemical engineering or neurological engineering - what R phase describes as nervous system re-education.
More of Why this Approach Makes Sense
Because it works on the nervous system, Z is engineered to function on the top of the body's information stack (or the bottom, depending on your perspective). Systems that focus on the muscles or even the joints or the ligaments or or or are not focusing on the fundamental global system of the body. Each of these other parts is further down the chain than the nervous system. All these other systems rely on the nervous system. If everything starts with the signals to and from this system, why not start with it? As Kathy Mauck of Z describes it, the nervous system is the Always On Guardian of the body.
In Sum
R phase is about using joint mobility in particular as the vehicle to open up the signals of the nervous system, with the consequence of movement improving. The power of this simple, direct approach, makes sense. We're dynamic creatures: move well; we're well; move not well, it's a sign we're not well. R phase is designed to help us move well. The R phase certification teaches us how to help clients apply these principles to get liberated from pain and move better. The course is delivered effectively, well paced, highly interactive, well supported by discussions, lectures, practical hands-on work. Also, everyone in the cert i did wants to continue with the rest of the certifications (I, S, T). That says a lot: most of these folks are experienced trainers who hold a number of other certifications already.
Participants. If you're not a trainer, but are interested in benefitting from the Z approach to improve movement and all its consequent perks (like reduced pain), consider getting the R phase DVDs and combine this with seeing an Z certified instructor to help tune your movements to get the biggest benefit.
Trainers. If you are a trainer and would like to be able to bring these techniques to your clients to help them improve their efficiency, the cert is highly recommended. But come prepared: it's recommended that a participant spend at least 50 hours practicing the drills before attending a certification. Once you're there you'll know why: you're expected to have the drills in your head. Likewise, the better your anatomy, the more you'll get from the cert. There are lots of great books to help here, and the R phase materials recommend many, so the sooner you plan on your z path, the better shape you'll be in, if you're coming at this cold.
Overall. Recommended - highly. I hope this description helps clarify how R phase itself and the certification in particular are both distinct from other mobility or assessment systems, and is on its own for yourself a potentially powerful adjunct to your practice - as a mover and as a trainer.
Posted by mc at September 8, 2008 09:11 PM