What is an FMS screen? – Jane Ogle and Brigitte Rentiers
Guests: Jane Ogle and Brigitte Rentiers
Release Date: 5/16/2022
Welcome to Trulyfit the online fitness marketplace connecting pros and clients through unique fitness business software.
Steven Washuta: Welcome to the Trulyfit podcast where we interview experts in fitness and health to expand our wisdom and wealth. I’m your host, Steve Washuta, co-founder of Trulyfit and author of Fitness Business 101. In today’s episode, I speak with Jane Ogle and Brigitte Rentiers of Custom Fit Center in Savannah, Georgia, we’ve spoken before, and they’re coming back on the podcast for a second appearance to talk specifically about functional movement screens, chambers that are both friends of mine.
We start off the podcast with a little conversation about life. And I will forewarn you the audio is a little bit odd in certain parts of this, not enough for anyone to worry about hearing everything, but the audio could be a little bit off in certain portions of this.
Anyhow, it’s a great conversation discussing the reason behind using a functional movement screen with your clients, why it’s advantageous, why you should use it, how one goes about getting certified for functional movement screens, the thought process, and the science behind it, what you can use it for how you advance in using this, and it’s a great conversation.
A lot of personal trainers don’t know about the functional movement screen, certainly, most of the general population doesn’t know why it’s advantageous and why it’s important not only to look at it from a progression standpoint but if you’re working with your clients or if your general population and you’re working in the health and fitness area, how am I progressing through this.
But also from an injury prevention standpoint, what is going wrong with the body that I might need to focus on mechanistically prior to jumping into just overall health and fitness and getting stronger? I have to fix some of the small accessory muscles for lack of a better term. Great conversation with no further ado, here’s Jane and Brigitte of Custom Fit Center you can find everything about them at Custom Fit center.com and Custom Fit Center on all the socials.
Jane Ogle: So how well-rested Are you? Um,
Steven Washuta: I am pretty well-rested. But you can hear my voice is lost because I went to a concert last night. So I the first concert or the really the first events I think I’ve been to post baby. Ah, she’s eight months old yesterday. So I enjoyed myself at a concert. Actually, it was funny, there was so many like 15 and 16-year-olds at this concert.
And I just have to ask, I was like how do you know this band. And they’re like, Oh, it’s my dad’s favorite bands or my mom’s favorite bands. So now I’m officially like that old where I’m going to concerts of bands that I like where the kids are going because their parents liked the band. So that happened. That’s funny.
Jane Ogle: Welcome to the understanding. What’s cool about music now, though, that was not the case, when we were coming out and really, even as recently as like 10 years ago, is that when you’re listening to a playlist or style, say, on Spotify, or Pandora, or whatever, you’re going to
hear music from the 1920s to the 2000 20s. It’s all gonna get mixed together. And so it’s so interesting to encounter youngsters go right ahead and say, yeah, that is just wide open in terms of eras, and genres. We get to hear everything and lonely, you know, they hear what they like, and they get turned on to it make a funny moment.
So there’s so much more crossover because of the way the platforms have changed. Yeah, radio was very restrictive, once upon a time, and you got to hear what was current was about it. And then there are formats over here for those programs that exist on temporary streaming.
Steven Washuta: It’s so true, I’ve never had to add to that chain, I didn’t even think you know, thinking about the radio concept, you were afraid at some point to change your radio station to miss one of the potential songs that you liked.
So you didn’t even really toggle between radio stations that much at a certain point, let’s say 2030 years ago, but now it’s like, it doesn’t matter because all the music is on-demand. So you can listen to anything at any time. And I think you’re right, that that certainly changes the for good in a good way. I believe it’s good. I’m sure that these kids get to listen to whatever it is that they want.
Jane Ogle: Just go down the rabbit hole.
Brigitte Rentiers: And you know what I’m on the chairman, kind of like the exercise thing when people say ooh, I’ve got a new exercise and people think, ooh, I’ve got this new sound of music and really long the whole cycle of yours. You really, I mean, everything kind of ends up repeating itself in some way, shape, or form or blending things. I don’t know. That’s my view of it.
Steven Washuta: Yeah, certainly. So what’s, what’s going on with a custom fit, give us an update. How Has everything been sort of like during this COVID transition since the last time we talked? How has business been how have you maybe transitioned and taken new steps to do virtual stuff? Just give us an update.
Brigitte Rentiers: Well, we’re exploring right now. Which is amazing. And graduate in person. Yeah, yeah. And it forced us to be okay with the zoom and FaceTime, which we didn’t feel were as personal. But, hey, it’s working.
And there is probably maybe a couple of people that are still wanting to do that, whether it’s because they’ve moved, or they just like to have one day at home and one day in the studio. So it’s given us a big platform, and for that sake,
Jane Ogle: will also have ample opportunity to develop some online programming, based on programming that we’ve already performed live a number of times. So we’re in the development phase, we’ve talked a little bit about what platforms you have experience with Steve. And so we’re on our way to getting things produced.
Of course, there’s so much background learning to do in terms of production values, developing targeted sales lists, and so forth. So we’re, we’re getting into that room. And we’ll see where that takes us. On a step-by-step basis, I think we want to make sure that the things that we put out there have the same kind of integrity that we deliver in person.
And that, you know, continues to set us apart from all the other noise and all the other traffic and all the other jingling, jangly stuff that’s out there. So small steps to get there. And certainly, you know, having the experience we’ve had for the last couple of years, working with people, that we’re comfortable with that.
Steven Washuta: Yeah, certainly much different. As we know, you can’t walk around the person and sort of a 360 manner and see everything that’s going on, you lose that personal one-on-one touch that connection with your client, it is personal training for a reason.
But what can we do if there are no other options, and it’s better off for some people, you know, what I have for wild Jane and Bridgette, I said, I wouldn’t do it, I was not going to virtual train people. And then I had clients reach out. And it wasn’t about me, they couldn’t find a good trainer in person.
Wherever they were right, they couldn’t find somebody that they could go to. So they said, Steve, like, I know that you don’t believe that you’re 100% of your skill set doing virtually. But 80% of you Knowing me, knowing my body, having worked with me before is better than 100% of someone else who has to start over with and I just had to eat my ego and say, You’re right, I am limited in this modality. But if this is what the client wants,
Jane Ogle: that’s all on you.
Brigitte Rentiers: Well, and also state to add to that, if you already have an existing client, and they claim they have this at home or that at home, or they can’t do this, because of that. And when you get your eyes on, where they say they’re working out or attempting to do something, and you can like go, wow, did you look at that area over there?
Or they didn’t, they didn’t really explain it maybe like they thought they should have and then you’re finding a new way. And I look at it as they’re rehearsing in their house. So then, when they’re not with you, it makes it easier for them to do their home exercises.
Steven Washuta: Yeah, it’s sort of like an a sort of like an audit of what they’re doing and what their home is, from our perspective and say, Hey, I know you’re putting that band around that, but actually, it’s safer around the bedpost, because it’s not going to slide up off or hey, I know you’re doing lunges there, but watch out for the couch. You can do lunges over there instead. I never thought of it that way. But you’re right. It’s beneficial for them.
Brigitte Rentiers: Yeah.
Steven Washuta: So today, we’re going to expand on the FMS screen I touched on this really briefly almost accidentally, with Eric de Gotti who uses it with some of his athletes. And I didn’t really go down the rabbit hole of asking him all those questions.
So I’m having both June and brochette on to sort of explaining what the FMS screen is. I know a lot of personal trainers heard about it, they understand what screens are from a general perspective. But can you give me a definition of what FMS is and then who it’s under if it’s under any of the major sort of corporations.
Jane Ogle: FMS stands for function On screen. And it comes out of a paradigm that really started almost all of the standard fitness assessments that we do. Back in the Reebok fitness days, when Reebok was a significant leader in programming and tools for training, there was a physical therapist and athletic trainer by the name of Greg Cook, who was very involved in those early days, talking about the 1980s.
Developing standardized fitness assessments. And what blossomed from there with Grace research. And with his involvement in different professional athletic organizations, he was instrumental in developing the titles Performance Institute, and then also the function within swing. So it’s all kind of born out of this effort to see where people are, and work with them where they are.
But also give them a sense of whether or not they have a high-risk level. So particularly in athletics, Ray Cook, will book athletic bodies in balance. And a colleague of mine was really turned on by that book and introduced us to the principles there. And that was the beginnings of the functional movement screen as we know, some of the testing and the corrective exercises that were called for, in that publication that Greg Cook authored.
He used strings and masking tape. That was and tools that we all have readily available and eventually designed a kit. You can see that behind me with the FMS logo on there, your FMS screening kit. That’s one level of screening and assessment that FMS offers now, they offer an additional level of professional screening and assessment.
For physical therapists and physicians and chiropractors. It’s terrific to have that platform to work within and to find like-minded chiropractors and physical therapists or orthopedists who are familiar with the system. And to be able to speak the same language about someone’s capabilities, or where they have room for improvement.
So we can work together hand in glove on helping someone improve the quality of their movement, as well as the frequency of the movement. So a big part of the philosophy of Functional Movement Screen is to move better first and then move on. Improve the structure before you start running cars over it, right. So make sure that things will move around without a load and then load up and intensify.
So for that reason, it’s really effective to use any population that was originally designed for athletes and very high performance, but it can be used with anyone to get a feel for where there might be imbalances. And where there might be areas where you need to call in a physical therapist or an orthopedist or chiropractor, somebody with more advanced skills for pain reduction, and good quality function. And then we can work from performance.
Steven Washuta: Walk me through your client experience, Brigitte. You can start if you want. Steve walks in custom-fit and heard great things guys want to work with you. Amazing Jim, you have here and I signed the health history forum. We go through everything I pay you oodles of money because you deserve it. And then you say Hey, Steve, we’re gonna do an FMS screen today. What does it look like? What are the first steps?
Brigitte Rentiers: Well, we do begin with the posture screening. So we take a still shot, basically, have them stand against the grid. And I always tell people that of course when they’re being looked at they try to stand in the best alignment. But then when we move to the functional movement screening Their bodies in motion.
So it’s hard for them to fake it or try to correct anything. And I personally want that client to turn away from the mirror. So I would have you face the wall so you can’t look and correct yourself. So as we began the functional movement screening, I explained, there’s, as you see, behind Jane, there’s this nice board, it looks a little intimidating, and you hold a dowel. In certain positions, we have seven movement patterns that we go through.
And then I explained the grading scale if you will. And that’s always interesting, because the minute you say, 012, or three, they always go, oh, gosh, I don’t want to be a zero. But the other challenge with that is, I have to explain if you feel any pain, and pain doesn’t have to be like, oh, gosh, I’m in pain, it could be just an awareness of something that would make it go to zero.
So we have to work really hard at making you feel like this is not a representation of your character, or something’s wrong with you. But we try our best to be just as here’s the movement. For instance, the first one is a deep squat. Most people know what a squat is. So I walk you through how to set up properly for the deep squat. Number one would be the best posture, make the tallest version of Steve.
We hold the dowel over our head, and then we position your feet and we go through step by step, we give you three attempts to do your squat. And the best of the three is what we take. Meanwhile, I’m walking around you and saying squat, slow, do the best that you can.
The second one is your hurdle step. No inline lunge or hurdle step Jane, there it is. hurdle step. But either way, there are seven movement patterns. And so each one, we go through and set you up as if you have no idea what you’re doing, even if you know what you’re doing.
So we’re trying to really embrace the set you up, get you in the best posture, and give you three chances to do the best move. And of course, anytime someone knows that someone’s looking at them while they’re being tested, they’re very nervous.
We try not to fill you up with too many words like I’m like I do, but just just do the movement, let’s get the best version of you. Sometimes if you can’t execute the movement properly, then we just take what we can, for instance, one of them is in line lunge, and you literally stand on that board, like you’re on a balance beam, which is pretty scary.
Then we just tell them to straddle the box, we just try to get them in the best position so that even if they can’t do it, according to how they’re supposed to do it to get tested, we just move them in to see how they, they look. Whether a knee is moving in or out whether the shoulders are dipping to the right or left, it really is pretty amazing. Even with a very athletic person, we all have our tendency of compensating.
Steven Washuta: Jane, can you speak to the grading system, Steve goes into the squat, which Bridgette said was exercised one of the seven, his left foot starts turning out his pelvis is out of whack as you know, everything’s falling forward, explain what sort of grade I would get and how you use that grade moving forward.
Jane Ogle: That sounds as if you’ve been through this before. So there are very specific guidelines for what the highest priority or optimal movement pattern is. And that’s a three if you meet those guidelines.
There’s a certain alignment of the dowel over your head, there’s no imbalance from your right to left side, across your shoulders, across your hips, the knees stay in line with your ankles at the bottom of the movement, we find those below parallel to the floor, the movement so it is, in fact, a deeper squat than people think.
You will use an exercise so again, this is an assessment. So you’re looking for very particular standards in assessment, you may or may not apply to loaded exercise. So, if there are any compensations for any imbalances that are apparent in those first three attempts at that movement, there’s a way of not moving past deep squats natural for patterns within a deep squat pattern, we can take the compensation by putting the SMX box was just basic way to buy for putting that to buy for under your heels.
And then look again at the quality of your looping pattern. And if you are cleaning your looping pattern with your heels elevated, oh really does is takes your calves out of the equation, if you have any kind of limitation in your dorsiflexion.
That’s going to inhibit the way your knees move, which is going on with the next move on so on the movement chain. So if you have a claim movement pattern with the heels elevated, you score two, if you have an imbalance or one pattern or compensation with the heels elevated, it’s a score of one, whatever that imbalance is.
And we make very careful notes about what those imbalances are, we will look at all of the movement patterns, all of the imbalances that present themselves, before we draw a whole lot of conclusions about how to address those problems, it may be an upper-body in coordination that’s affecting the way than balanced works below the waist, it couldn’t be our body in the balance of surgery or prior injury that affects the way the whole movement chain works.
It could be a problem with your core, and having a weak core all the way around the trunk, not just the front. But having a weak core can cause some pretty significant imbalances. If your upper and lower bodies aren’t communicating with each other very well. So make sure that those firing sequences are happening properly. Patterns are pretty critical to drawing any kind of conclusion about where to go next.
Steven Washuta: I think the statement you made earlier, Jane about having parlance that you can use amongst all of these fitness professionals that is shared is very important, right? Because I can do my own assessment that is similar to this.
But it’s not that helpful. If I pass it on to someone else, and just give them like four pages of notes of what’s going on. Right? They don’t have the time to read that with my client. But if I say hey, it’s quarter two in the squat because of lack of ankle mobility, then that’s that’s just that’s easier. So sort of transferable information to the physical therapist, who can then you know, decipher what else is going to take.
Take the next step sort of in there, whatever prescription they have an exercise to get them better and, and I always struggled personally, although I’m a corrective exercise specialist, which is just me just passing a test. It doesn’t mean anything. I always struggled to try to play what I call anatomical sleuth, is it the ankle causing the knee and hip issue? Or is it the hip causing the ankle a knee issue? Who the hell knows where it starts? I don’t know where it is on the chain.
Sometimes, like, like you said, you have to refer that up the ladder to maybe somebody who’s better at that. But having this sort of test, I think is really great, so that you can do the baseline work, and then pass that on to someone else if it is above our pay grade. Present.
I was going to ask you next, how often and you can both answer this because trainers work in different fashions, right? We’re not all robots? How often will you repeat an FMS screen or go back through some of these things with the client because you want to see if they’ve made any progress during your training?
Brigitte Rentiers: Well, a lot of times after you’ve done the test, we call those highlighted areas that we’re going to really work on even though you might score too on some of them. But if there are some drastic imbalances, I will pick and choose certain ones.
And then it is intriguing even to the client. So they will be like, Well can we do this sooner? Sometimes it was three months, sometimes six months, it could be up to a year, some people could really care less.
But I think that what you said before it is very intriguing even to the person if you don’t know is the imbalance coming from your knee, your ankle. And sometimes once you make the client aware, then they start cycling through their head going oh, it’s not necessarily the exercise I’m doing it could be something I’m doing at home.
Maybe it’s gardening or something that I’m in this position a lot so then that in itself is just self-awareness making a correction. But you know to answer your question directly, I Jain you can help me out with this. I believe it is a three to six-month repetitive if you want to just keep checking it. But I think standards you could say a year
Jane Ogle: I think the standards have changed over time. When I first was introduced to the functional movement screen, the recommendation was to wait eight weeks before a completely new screen.
Now, having been exposed to a number of FMS workshops, through IDEA conferences, and so forth, will say if you see progress in movement pattern on any given day, just it just go out and test it, do corrective patterns, and see if it makes a difference in the score right then in there.
So you can be very flexible or not depending on your client’s books. Sure, like everything else. Yeah, it depends on how much feedback and how much progress we’re aiming for. And, of course, if you’re already scoring a tail on those things, and you have a big function that’s considered function score, then people will build on their function.
So let’s when we have those scores of one, or zero, getting out of pain, obviously is progress. And then getting imbalances. Fixed is, is something that people really do, again, with more frequency. So can anyone basically work and make it work?
Brigitte Rentiers: Yeah, I think pain is a big factor. If someone obviously is in pain in any amount, and they start noticing, hey, this is feeling better. Some people don’t even realize that they could possibly feel better until they start feeling better.
And then they’re realizing, wow, this corrective exercise or just paying attention to my alignment can make such a big difference. It’s some people just don’t know what they don’t know, all of us have been through that we just live our lives and then once we’re aware of something, then it can be dialed into and corrected or improved upon
Steven Washuta: Jane I’m gonna ask you to play devil’s advocate a little bit here. I know you’re you’ve been a part of the FMS screen for a while, as you’ve explained. And you know, you know, the intricacies but tell us something that you don’t like about the FMS screen or if Jane was ahead of the Functional Movement Screen pattern, what would she add to it or take away from it?
Jane Ogle: Certainly within the list of questions, and I will actually try to think of something that I don’t like about it. Honestly, I haven’t been able to come up with anything,
Steven Washuta: that’s a great answer.
Jane Ogle: Which is, which is great. It’s a great thing to be able to say. It’s, it was impressed upon me, the very first time when I went to the FMS level one certification workshop. And this would have been I think, somewhere around 2006, I think 2007 Maybe the aha moments happened so fast and so frequently, in terms of putting the pieces together with mobility, stability, strength, performance, and all of the ways that any deficiency in any one of those areas can express themselves.
And really, ever since then I’m I’ve been a ridiculously huge fan. So I’d like to play devil’s advocate on this one. We’ve only gotten better. One of the interesting parts of the function movement organization. I think I mentioned before Greg Cook, struggled in Iraq with a lot of research. And we continue to do a lot of research.
So we changed one of the most common patterns, which you wouldn’t think if you’re developing an industry wide or cross-industry, for that matter, the standard of practice, that you wouldn’t see very often. They found that in the rotational stability test pattern. We were getting too many functional scores with dysfunctional people.
And that sounds kind of weird, isn’t it? I don’t mean that in a psychological manner. But that would be trainers and therapists. I knew that something was imbalanced. And yet people were routinely scoring functionally.
So I dialed in a more color, more intensive movement pattern, it was very difficult to achieve a score of three in the original version of the rotational stability pattern. And now, it’s a little more difficult to achieve a score of two, if there’s an imbalance across the body.
Because most of the movement patterns rely on a diagonal balance, from upper to lower, if there’s any imbalance there, it’s going to show up in that pattern much more effectively than it did before. So they will get out and in 2020 I think it was 2020.
And so actually, we’ve been, we’ve been doing the old pattern, so we’re gonna have to constantly remind ourselves to, to, to do the new one. So. So kudos to any organization that gets that constant feedback from users.
They’re getting feedback from the trainers who are members of a functional organization. And I’m working on improving things all the time. So I know you have been very consistent about improving the corrective pattern access that we have. So so having access to videos and illustrations and guidelines that we can share with clients on a regular basis is, is a big bonus.
It’s hard to remember, a lot of exercises, but particularly corrective exercises, where you want to draw radical attention to your pelvic stability, your scapular stability, your quarter firing, all that kind of stuff. It gets crazy, and the clients have so many they, and even
Brigitte Rentiers: I’ve been doing this, besides correcting the or making an adjustment to the rotational stability with the clearance tests, they added the ankle mobility for two. Yeah. So that was they dialed in a little bit more on how your ankle flexion is.
Because just like you said, Steve, is it? Is it coming from the ground up? Or is it coming from the knee or the hip down? So those are always the clearance test portion is, I think it just makes it a little bit more specific to when you are looking at some of the movement patterns.
And it just it helps you see the person a little bit better with is this movement coming from here. Plus, when you’re in the midst of the test, amazing conversations come out where I had a client say, oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you I fell out of a window when I was younger. And I went, Oh, okay. So that might affect a little bit of what’s going on here.
Because again, people don’t tell you everything their bodies can tell a good bit when they’re moving. But then when there’s the classic events in their life, that can tell you a lot about why something is compensating.
Steven Washuta: Yeah, that’s a great point. Like you said, no matter how much we push our clients in these consultations, I’ve told the story on this podcast before I had a client I worked with for a year and then she like somehow slipped into conversation that she had a heart attack two years ago, and like, that wasn’t on your health history form. Like I need to know that.
So it’s the fact that you can read their body and assess, then you can continue to interrogate them and ask them the question. And I just want to add, you know, Bridgette, you sort of mentioned this before, we’re talking about all the science behind this, which is great. But you know, I find it you know, as you guys are talking about this great from a motivational standpoint, because too many of our clients are worried about what I would call dumb metrics.
They want to step on the scale every day, right? They want to know what you know how much weight they can dumbbell chest press or something. Right. And Brian, and we can’t stop people from being concerned with metrics because it’s just in our human nature.
But this is a good metric to be concerned with. Right? So like Project setting, you might put your client and they you know, they scored of a one. And their goal is to say, hey, you know, I want to work on making sure that my inline lunge or whatever it is, is a little bit better.
Can we do these sorts of things? Because I’m concerned with my mobility, not my weight necessarily all the time. And I think having any additional metric that is what I’ve considered a healthy goal is a great thing.
Brigitte Rentiers: Right? I have a good bit of people that either walk or run outside of fitness and, you know, again, they put that little compliment of oh, you know, my ankles spent hurting while we go back and we look and we realize, okay, this part of the assessment, pointed to your ankle or pointed to things.
And so it kind of helps them motivate where, unfortunately, sometimes they have to stop running or walking or back way off, where then their brain starts thinking, Oh, great, I’m doomed. And so it gives you a little more incentive, once they start realizing you’re on their team, you’re gonna help them get through this movement.
That’s the purpose of this test. And you can feel improvement, not necessarily, you know, say, Oh, I see you move this much more. But once they start feeling different, bingo, you have, you have made a point.
Jane Ogle: Now, the most important thing that we can get the most important piece of information from any assessment process is, what’s the risk of injury? How do we avoid injuring this client? Because moving more is risky.
So how do we assess the risk that’s in this body at this time, and, and that’s kind of where the magic is, we can open people’s eyes to where they have a higher level of risk and reduce it. So we want to make sure that we’re designing the exercise programs, even beyond corrective exercises, but we’re designing programs that minimize risk and maximize your strengths.
Steven Washuta: If I’m a personal trainer, and I come to custom fit, and I say, you know, I really I love what you guys do, I’m a new personal trainer, I want to work at Custom Fit. I imagine you take an interest in maybe teaching them the FMS screen right? You’re gonna say, Hey, listen, we use this here, we talk about this, we need to teach this to you. What is your pitch to them? What exactly are you saying to that young personal trainer, why do they need to learn these things and understand these things?
Jane Ogle: Okay, I will tell you,
Brigitte Rentiers: I’ll tell you my version next.
Jane Ogle: A lot of what we already talked about. It’s, it’s hard to deny that one of the greatest things that we can do for pupils is to help them to avoid injury. And I think the, the medical ethers, at the very least in your home, certainly comes into play, you’re certified by any reasonable certification organization as part of your mission statement.
This goes along around to taking your skills to the next level. So elevating that mission statement elevates the level of service that you can provide, when you can start with a really clear roadmap. What is this person’s body and physicality, same team in terms of what they mean? And what steps can you take to deliver it.
So it’s not just about finding out what their one-rep max is. It’s about improving the quality of each and every movement, whatever it is, wherever they go, whatever their preferences on whatever their favorite sport is, how do you keep them in balance and enjoying being in your body?
Brigitte Rentiers: I think that if I had a trainer come in which we have had, if you give them the opportunity to take the FMS, we deliver it to them, then they are very much interested and understand it. So then, because some people are a little bit like oh, here we go another assessment.
But I think once they feel the difference of and understand the difference of how that can maneuver them through workouts and make everything a little bit better, because most people just want to come in and work out and push the heavyweights, and I’m all about pushing but at the same time. Most of the people are either already injured.
That speaks a good language to them that that whole safety but we again, make the trainer have the assess bid on them, and then they can better understand it. And then we go through a couple of times where either Jane and myself will shadow them while they’re doing an assessment, or they do the assessment, and then they come back to us, and then we discuss it.
Because I think that that is a really good learning tool, just like anything else, when you’re not used to something, if you’re delivering it, you, you start to understand it better when you get your hands on it, and you begin to repeat it. And then I think you have different respect from your clients, your clients know that, okay, they’re not just like you said, Steve, just get on the scale, just do this, just do that this is a whole different level of, we are really on your side to help you age in your body better, and help you move overall better in your daily life.
Steven Washuta: Yeah, I love how you both saw that, from the perspective of why it’s beneficial for the client. You know, like this is this is what we do, right? We help our clients. But I think you could also not that any trainer should be selfish in this in this regard.
But you could also pitch it like, Hey, you are getting another skill set that you can put on your resume, right, this is an additional thing that you have to not only share with your clients, but you know, again, put on your resume and show that you have a larger scale understanding of the body, why would you not want to learn an additional thing about the body when your whole job is to know about the bug?
Jane Ogle: You mentioned something about your corrective exercise Specialist Certification and how that was just passing test. And, you know, you have to have a certain understanding in order to pass the test and a certain mindset to pass the test. But to bring that into the application, day after day in session after session with all kinds of different clients is certainly another thing altogether.
So the Functional Movement Screen is very experiential. Now Yeah, it’s a certification, very worthwhile program to dive into, and really just browse in its use, because you’re worrying to see so much more. It’s, it’s fascinating, always, to me, which is where we go to, to see how much people can carry around without being rounds, and the impact what prior injuries and surgeries can have a loving people can work at a very high-performance level, with some pretty serious dysfunction in your joints and muscles.
Still just keep going to be able to find was easier and easier to be able to fine-tune, the way you dress and improve those things is great on both sides, from clients, or even from a trainer side, it’s great to be able to do that for people, it’s great to be able to have that kind of a vision. Because people don’t see that or feel that in themselves.
Brigitte Rentiers: I like to always use the term of putting things in your toolbox. And from a perspective of trainers. I mean, the more tools in our toolbox, per se to use to help for our clients is one way but also tell the client, the more you have us looking at you a certain way maybe they have a physical therapist, maybe they have a massage therapist, tech, maybe they just have another avenue.
But I always think that the more vision you have, especially when you’re dealing with it, the curiosity of it, I can’t imagine someone not wanting to know more about their own body. But a trainer for sure. It would definitely promote what they’re already doing and refine what they’re doing.
Steven Washuta: So it sounds like there is no reason not to get the FMS screen. People should be certified in their personal trainers eventually at some point in their career. That’s only beneficial. Talk a little bit about that process. Where do you go? Can you do this online? Do you have to have someone else certify you officially How does that process work?
Jane Ogle: First you go to crucial living.com. And there you can see all the different levels of education there Wherever we do online programming, they have to, just like we all did. But they have gone back to live in person instruction. And so they frequently have weekend conferences in major cities around the country in order to do that. So I think the conference that that I went to, for my certification was in Boston. And just gonna, say investment,
Steven Washuta: Hypothetically started about in here. Let’s say I don’t have the time or the money right now. But Jane teaches me the skill set. And I can go ahead and use that for a little while until I have the time and the money to let’s say, fly to Boston or take this course, do you still think that’s an effective way to go about this?
Jane Ogle: Wow, I cannot lie.
Brigitte Rentiers: You taught me
Jane Ogle: why entire staff that I worked with, when I got certified for FMS, everybody on our staff that certified and this was, before I moved to Savannah, I was still living in upstate New York, and shout out to New York. So our entire staff brought in our fearless leader at Plaza fitness.
He reached out to the definiteness crew, founders of that organization, and asked for their blessing for us to develop a program based almost entirely on FMS, to kind of take the show on the road to universities with with sports training, degree programs, that kind of act as another arm of the FMS organization.
Would you please recognize the certification that we provide to those students? They did well, and we said yes, so so we did that for a couple of years, to a few universities, conducted training programs and conducted that same program, with incoming trainers around facility. That’s the same training program that I still use in our facility, I still think it’s extraordinarily beneficial to go and the city of Dallas has developed nearly basic assessments that anybody who listens in the United States is still using.
Listen to them describe them. Punjab, the energy, and the smarts, what they bring to it. So we can take you through the basics. But it’s it’s invaluable to get the level of expertise that they bring to the table. This is extraordinary and entertaining. That’s a rock stars. And they’re really fun.
Steven Washuta: Yeah, I was just, I was gonna add to that I missed, I missed those things. I can’t wait to go to some sort of fitness-related events. And I, I take more from the presenters than I do from the information, if that makes sense, right? How they present what’s going on with them. You just you’ve learned so much from these people who have been teaching in that sort of stage for a long time and how they go about the process.
So I miss it. And I can’t wait to get to get back to some of those things. So I wanted to ask you, and you might have not thought about this, but are you guys ever going to come up with your own screen? Another level of the screen? Is it worthwhile to develop like a functional movement screen point two or something? Or do you think they do such a good job that it’s just easier to follow in their footsteps?
Brigitte Rentiers: I haven’t thought of that. But I think that the one that we are using is perfect. But then again, the more bodies you take through it sometimes there is that level of never thought of this movement might help that but I mean, the seven movements are pretty basic and take you through pretty pretty good i about what each person does in their daily life. it or in an activity? It spells it out pretty well. So not on my end,
Steven Washuta: Jane are their competitors to this? And if so, do you do you know any of them?
Jane Ogle: I honestly do not know, competitors in this kind of assessment.
Steven Washuta: Yeah, I’ve never heard of competitors. Unless people think that corrective exercise is a competitor, I don’t really think so that’s not they don’t do a screen. They just understand the nuances of what’s going on. But there is no screen involved. So,
Jane Ogle: yeah, I do know,
Brigitte Rentiers: I’m sorry for interrupting you Jane, that when when you are looking up corrective exercises, if you don’t have your little library, I remember you saying to me a lot, Jane, make sure it says the FMS because there are the other, the other ones that may not be as exact in their explanation. So I don’t know what they’re, they’re just offsets of it. But yeah, just like any other trademark the FMS when you are looking it up for any specific exercise or just explanation of the testing,
Jane Ogle: right. corrective exercise is complimentary to everything that we do. So not to just give a screen, it’s absolutely essential to have a series of movement patterns, but how to effectively says, correct any imbalances or problems that arise. And there’s certainly a whole bunch of different approaches to take corrective exercises, you have to know the lie of the movement.
Why are you doing with all that work? What is the ultimate benefit of that pattern? And how does it improve somebody’s moving overall, a lot of corrective exercise patterns. Kind of heading into the final or primitive fitness physicals. And there’s been pretty significant increase in those types of programs.
Over the last, say decade. We have GMP paradigms that address developmental types of movements. Crawling, jumping, and running out of strength is required to do all of those things. And that’s great. I have a problem. Meaning that I think isn’t as the IP addresses provide. improves the quality of your movement. That sounds good.
Steven Washuta: I wanted to ask both of you this because I think I’ve had this conversation with everyone who’s been on the podcast. Just it’s interesting to hear everyone’s take from the sports medicine doctors to just random personal trainers. It seems like we’ve had more injuries today than we’ve ever had before.
Right? The orthopedics are doing more surgeries, Sports, medicine, doctors and physical therapists are absolutely books. Science is supposed to be better, we should be having less injuries. But we seem to that doesn’t seem to be the case. What is your take on that? Do you think the FMS screen like we do, like James has mentioned could help maybe prevent some of that.
And that may be training styles that this is leading, I’m leading you down a road here. But the training styles of other trainers are contributing to this or I should say general population, only focusing on heavy weights and moving in, you know, just a few planes of motion.
Jane Ogle: That’s such a big question.
Brigitte Rentiers: You know, personally, I think that and this is this is part of me going up. I’m guilty of it too. Because I tried to tell the client, we’re going to do the perfect scenario. We’re going to warm you up.
We’re going to prep your muscles, blah, blah, blah, we’re going to cool down we’re going to stretch and I think that our world is such a hurry, hurry, hurry, try to get everything in at once and let’s just get straight to the workout.
Or things are feeling better now. I don’t need to do that anymore. Kind of like that toolbox theory it and get your rest. I just think that people are doing the full start to finish how they should on a regular basis. I’m not saying you you have to do single time but they Overall, more and more people are kind of half-assed doing it.
Jane Ogle: The way I say a lot of people who are not saying, as in Bridgette nine trainers here at customs, I’m saying, in general, there are a lot of people in the world who rely on surgery as a last resort, in first resort. And that’s unfortunate. Because invasive procedures are treated within your domain, very similar to an injury.
That’s something that you carry around, it creates trauma. And so those are the things that we have to learn to work with really changes the way your body works. When there’s an injury, trauma or surgery. Sometimes there is no other way around addressing an injury than surgery.
As somebody who specializes in movement is going to recommend movement as a first resort as a first checks now, everybody in any specialty area, who believes in what they do is going to recommend that thing that they do.
Yeah, that’s reasonable enough, I suppose. But given the the trauma that a surgery can create, the physician is ours to try everything else first. And there’s so many things to try, if you are of the mindset to try those things.
So besides medication and surgery, which change the global system of a body, you have therapy, you have water therapy, you have acupuncture, you have massage therapy, you have within massage therapy, and Sports Therapy, you have muscle activation techniques, resistive stretching, scar tissue therapy in lymphatic drainage and wrapping. breath work.
So, I mean, you get into physical therapy. And those are boundaries. There’s so many different ways to treat a body to heal itself before going into the mines, so people getting injured more or trying to backdoor smart, or they’re going to therapists, one, I mean, if people are getting their pain addressed more often, that’s the painkillers.
With movement and treatment, that’s kind of whipping, right. And I think that’s going to continue to happen more as people become more self aware, and we’re interested in the ways that they can feel better. So injuries do happen, even under the best of circumstances. So no paperwork to mentor.
Steven Washuta: Yeah, great perspective, both of you. I mean, I echo all those thoughts. And Jane, like you sort of mentioned, you know, if you’re a hammer, everything’s a nail, if you’re a surgeon, of course, you’re gonna, if someone gets referred to you, and you can do the surgery, you’re gonna say let’s do it. Right. So that’s their specialty.
I think you know that that is, of course, a problem. But I also add to that. Just to sort of connect both of your points. And it seems like people over their lifetime the arc of their, let’s say their physical prowess. Starts to go down as they get older, they don’t change their routines.
When Bridgette is working with studs, who are men in their typically 60s and 70s. She’s not having them benchpress every day and go on the leg press. She’s having them go in the pool and do pilates and move in all directions, right. And do these different things, where we’ve now changed the exercise prescription based upon your age and your needs.
I think the general population, unfortunately, just through naivety. Doesn’t always know that we’ve watched people in their 60s. Doing exercise routines that are something that a football player doesn’t know 20s right. It’s like this isn’t the modality for you anymore. This has to change and I think I don’t know if the onus is on us as personal trainers.
Of course, it is a little bit but I think we do. We need some sort of education for the population, like Jane said. For just movement, right, we need to say it’s not just about the vanity and the lifting heavy weights. The sort of Arnold Schwarzenegger Esque prescription of lifting in these four to six rep ranges. We need movement, it doesn’t matter what it is yoga, basketball, you know. Ultimate Frisbee, we need to get people moving, rather than just lifting weights.
Brigitte Rentiers: Bingo, I think that the education from a trainer to the client. And that’s part of us exposing them more and more. Because it is hard to change someone’s mindset. If that’s all they’ve ever done, that’s all they’ve ever known.
Jane Ogle: What we’ve never done, people don’t know what they’re missing. If they’ve never really pushed themselves out of their eating habits. There are these variables that need to be addressed in order to get an optimal outcome from your exercise.
Why people are very stuck in the mindset. That I can just do this one thing will change is very short term. But no. So yeah, that’s definitely an educational process. And that’s an education process for any change.
Steven Washuta: And that’s difficult for us. As trainers, I know that I’ve, I can look back at, you know. Clients that I’ve trained that I’m sure you can say the same thing, I’m not happy about it. But I might have worked with them for two or three or four years. There wasn’t a lot of change.
It wasn’t for any other reason, then I work with them two hours a week. They were doing all the wrong things when they weren’t with me. What what else can you do. If you’re a personal trainer, and you’re working 45 hours a week. You have 20 clients and you have a life outside of there. I can’t go to my client’s home and make sure they’re making all the right choices. So I think it is important to have those conversations on the front end with your client.
And you know, when you get to this, I’m going on a tangent a little bit. But you get to a certain point in your career. You guys are there where you can fire clients. When you’re making enough money. You’re doing the right thing. You have to say I’m worried about your health. And I’m investing time in you every day. I can’t have you like not listen to what I’m saying. Can’t have you come in and do nothing outside of what we’re doing.
Because I’m wasting my time. And my mental sort of bandwidth and trying to help you and you’re not helping yourself. And I think maybe that’s ultimately what more trainers need to do is keep their clients accountable. From that perspective and say, Hey, listen, this is a mutual, like, goal we’re working towards. I don’t want you to just think that you’re paying me for this hour and leaving. I’m not You’re not your nail tech. I’m sort of like your guide to help.
Brigitte Rentiers: Interesting, Steve, that you would say that is. And this is the classic ad, I will speak to someone and they tell me what they need. And I am so about, okay, I want to hear what you’re saying. But if that’s all they dial into, I need this, I need balance. I need this. I want to lose this weight, but then they block when I start speaking. And I understand yes, you’re paying me. So I’m doing your service.
There’s that fine line, where, okay, you want me to just keep doing this. And then it becomes just not a very productive relationship. And always, it sounds like you’re being a smart tail. How’s it working for you? It’s not really working really well, is it? So why don’t we just try it this way? But yeah, it definitely becomes a pretty interesting psychology with your clients.
Jane Ogle: Kind of bringing it around to be FMS screen. For example, we have I can count on one hand, thankfully. Probably just on two fingers, the number of clients who have absolutely no sense of value for the FMS screen. And the corrective exercise patterns. Because the project said they knew what they needed already.
And that’s all they wanted to do. And so there comes a point. For me, personally, I mean, I can’t control when anybody goes to have a little control of my life. That I have probably no sense of security.
So I come back to that sense of value, right? Because that was saying what our expertise is. We don’t have a sense of value for the advice we’re giving you. Even if it’s only within the time and space that we are together. Then why are we together? Yeah, it’s it is okay to say now when it doesn’t go? Well, when you were on your way up and struggling to pay the rent, that’s a difficult thing to do.
But it’s always a worthwhile thing to do, even in the event you’re scraping. Because ultimately, it reflects your energy and your mindset and your positivity, and all the other interactions.
Steven Washuta: Yeah, that’s a that’s a great perspective. I couldn’t echo those thoughts more. This has been a fantastic conversation. I’m so glad we got into some of these other questions. Not just the FMS screen so good to catch up with you guys.
In the project, can you tell the listeners where they can find more about custom fit for you. To individually where they can maybe reach out to you if they have questions concerning the FMS screen. Or something or where they can find you as far as your social media is concerned?
Brigitte Rentiers: Yes, we are on Facebook, and we are an Instagram under Custom Fit. But we also you could reach out to us email www.customfitcenter.com. And that’s a pretty simple way and that usually goes straight to Jane. And then She kind of navigates where and who. Where does that goes from there.
Jane Ogle: But wait, wait, we’re also on Twitter and we’re also on the next Center.
Brigitte Rentiers: We are all over that, aren’t we?
Steven Washuta: I will put all the links below Jane and Brigitte of Custom Fit. Thank you so much for joining us Trulyfit Podcast.
Steve Washuta: Thanks for joining us on the Trulyfit podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your listening platform. Feel free to email us as we’d love to hear from you.
Thanks again!
