Before we exert ourselves physically, we need to ensure we have a solid foundation. Stable structure, a balanced musculature, and a relatively injury-free body are essential to healthy, effective and pain-free movement patterns. Without these components, we risk "stacking fitness on top of dysfunction," as Gray Cook would say.

When we assess or screen a movement pattern, we may notice asymmetries, imbalances, an inhibited range of motion, or the failure to perform the task itself. For instance, consider the overhead squat. If you lack the shoulder and thoracic mobility to keep the barbell in line with your center of mass, then you’re at risk for injury when lifting heavier weights. In the overhead squat, if your lats or pecs are overly tight, you will pitch the barbell forward. If you lack ankle mobility, your knees will protrude. Likewise, core strength is required to maintain a straight spine.

Unfortunately, many of us can’t be bothered to address our movement patterns before starting a program, despite Gray Cook’s perspective of "give me two weeks so you can have the rest of the season."

So, in the absence of a screen and a trainer, how would you proceed safely?

Sometimes, you can read the movement, but you cannot write it, and if you cannot write it, how will you right it? You know what you need to do (in your mind), yet you still can’t perform the movement.

You need help.

You might hire a qualified instructor to screen your movement patterns and provide a series of corrective exercises to correct the dysfunctional pattern. In some cases, the training may fall outside the instructor’s scope of practice. Then you will need a referral to a physical therapist, or even an orthopedic surgeon.

Most likely, you’re still in the gym and just plow through your workout. Then, you’ll get hurt and begin an ongoing cumulative injury cycle.

Enter the ProBar Even at the most basic level, we all understand that "sitting is the new smoking." Our dependency on devices has added to the dangers of too much sitting—as we hunch our shoulders and round our spines. We know it’s bad for us, but we don’t do enough to fix the problem.

However, here’s some good news: there is now a tool that can help you automatically dial-in and auto-correct your movement patterns. The self-corrective twist and pull "activating feature" of the ProBar is one of its most appealing and fundamental functions. Use this feature to instantly feel the upper thoracic and upper posterior chain engage. Starting from a basic isometric hold before engaging in any dynamic activity "proves the pudding."

 

A simple twist and pull of the ProBar activates muscles which may be dormant, and turns off overactive muscles. This restores the body’s symmetry and balance instantly.

With its ability to automatically restore symmetry, balance, and muscular activation, the ProBar becomes your "self-trainer." This is not intended to dismiss the need for a trainer or physical therapist. On the contrary, since the more knowledge you have when using the ProBar, the more you will benefit from it. In general, while assessing movement can be difficult, it can be equally, if not more difficult, to find adequate exercises to correct poor patterns.

 

By special arrangement, Dragon Door customers receive a 10% discount on their orders. Simply insert the discount code DD10 at checkout.

 

The #1 core value of any personal trainer or athletic coach is to "do no harm." Protect first, correct second. In the hands of a trainer, the ProBar is a self-cueing tool for clients who may have difficulty controlling their hardware (the body). If the brain is where the "software" is installed, then the ProBar is the "software patch" necessary for turning the appropriate muscles on or off.

You will activate a different set of muscles (such as the lats, traps, or rhomboids) depending on the angle at which you hold the ProBar. As mentioned earlier, activating the upper body posterior chain can fix common problems such as forward rounded shoulders, protruding neck, and flexed lumbar spine.

This activation is just one aspect of the 3-Pillar ProBar Mobility System:

Once you grasp the three primary concepts (pillars), the static and dynamic movement possibilities with the ProBar become endless. These ideas are not new, they’re simply an application of proven concepts that have been taught for decades—or maybe even centuries! It’s up to you to select and apply the modalities to suit your needs.

 

 

 Tool: The ProBar

The ProBar is several tools in one. It can be used in a Functional Movement Screen—in the long configuration, it replaces the long dowel for a Deep Squat assessment and the Active Straight Leg Raises. In the short configuration it can be marked with chalk to assess shoulder mobility. Gray Cook advised me to "Study and reverse-engineer Athletic Body In Balance and make the ProBar like an FMS-lite kit."

No other tool provides tension in a "solid state," especially compared to flimsy elastic tubing or a towel. The ProBar teaches you to "irradiate" as Pavel described in Power To The People.

As it slowly closes over the course of a set, the chrome "piston" shows you your level of fatigue.

Using the ProBar is about working the movement patterns, which work the muscles—instead of just working the muscles.

You can use the ProBar to warm-up, cool-down, for corrective exercises, or as a corrective tool for rehabilitative purposes within the scope of a physical therapy session or post-therapy continued training. The ProBar adds instant value to your training, whether you are a provider or a client/patient. It eliminates a lot of cueing, misunderstandings, and movement confusion.

The ProBar enhances movement patterns. For instance, to baseline the movement, perform an overhead squat with the ProBar without the twist and pull distraction. Then repeat the movement while engaged—the ProBar immediately realigns the body into a correct structural pattern. That pattern realignment translates and/or transfers to better strength through safe execution of the movement.

 

The ProBar provides enhanced mobility, improved priming of movement patterns, and posture correction in an all-in-one convenient kit. It is a veritable weapon of fitness, used by physical therapists, personal and group trainers, as well as sports coaches and pro athletes.

 

By special arrangement, Dragon Door customers receive a 10% discount on their orders. Simply insert the discount code DD10 at checkout.

 

 

TESTIMONIALS

I will bring this to a ton of different populations, from my high school athletes who are looking to take that next step, maybe take it to that next rep in the weight room or score that next goal on the field, and my patients’ routines as well. It is something I can specifically use with them, it’s easy to set up, I can do it right in the clinic, and show them how far they’ve come. (…) Mobility makes all the difference. I tell my patients all the time "you can be strong in 45º of motion, but if you’re not getting that full motion, you’re not getting any added benefit, so being able to utilize a tool like [the ProBar] them bring them back to their full mobility then being able to strengthen them within that full mobility is going to make a world of difference to them.

The whole idea of the posterior chain activation is something that I coach and with some patients I’m banging my head against the wall, trying to get them to activate and connect to it. With a tool like the ProBar it’s just automatic

- Dr. Nick Mangone, Physical Therapist at Wayne Physical Therapy in Wayne, NJ

The ProBar is an effective piece of equipment that does a LOT for shoulder health and strength. Many shoulders lack stability and the ProBar is an excellent tool to improve that quality. The craftsmanship is extremely high—unless you throw it in the ocean, I imagine it will last hundreds of years.

- Max Shank

I’m amazed at how far the ProBar really takes me with activating extra muscles and maybe pulling in the smaller muscle groups that I’m looking at with bigger movements. And for me, to leave out that extra 2% or 5% on the table is just not acceptable. I always have my patients ago after it, and the ProBar does that with a lot less cueing. So, I don’t need to go there tactile or verbally. As soon as they distract the ProBar, they know what they need to do.

- Dr. Phil Lombardo, board certified Doctor of Physical Therapy, Paramus, NJ

Being able to incorporate full-body workouts that can take me less than 10 minutes and use them maybe as a warm-up before jujitsu, or a cool-down after, to get some mobility work and some strength training as well would really benefit me personally. There’s a lot of specific postural education and mobility work in my physical therapy practice, I feel that the ProBar connects that missing link.

- Chris Rago, Physical Therapist, NJ. Blue belt in BJJ and Soccer Player.

I’ve had an injury where I had difficulty with both shoulder retraction and depression, and it’s one of the main things [the ProBar] does. With all the methods of PT that I went through, the bar itself kind of put that all together into one easy tool to use for me.

- Jeff Eades, Personal Trainer, NJ

You can’t even imagine all the things that they can teach you at the workshop and that you can do and utilize and add to your repertoire and be freaking bad-ass!

- Kim Glass, 2008 Olympics Volleyball Silver Medalist & Personal Trainer, Los Angeles, CA

It’s a great tool that’s easy to use and it can also help me work out some of my issues with my shoulder as well as my mobility.

- Seth Avergon, Marketing Director, Long Beach, CA

This bar is simple yet so effective when it comes to muscular activation, I’m pretty sure my clients are going to love it.

- Jeremy Ng, Master Trainer, distributor and facility owner, Malaysia.

I always look for ways to have my clients work on what they need to work on at home as simply as possible, and the ProBar really adds to that.

- Paul Daniels, Personal Trainer, The Body Warehouse, Orange County, CA.

This ProBar is very intriguing to me. It’s very a simple product, but there’s a lot of complexity and variety, and pretty much an infinite amount of little nuances that make any movement pattern better. It pretty much blew my mind that all the restrictions and mobility issues that I have can be improved not over days or weeks or years, but literally in seconds. So for me this has a very profound impact not only on how I train myself, but how I train my clients.

I’m always looking for ways to make the movement better, and I just found it.

- Franz Snideman, Co-founder and chief instructor at Primal Speed & CEO/Founder at FS Athletics, La Jolla, CA.

We like to use it on our return to sports clients, also because it allows them to work on the distraction in a way they can’t work at home with a PVC pipe. It is also beneficial in our clinic to work on people with overhead injuries, chronic back pain and core stabilization and back strengthening.

- Vanessa Avila, PT Assistant, Koh Physical Therapy Lab, Irvine, CA

 

By special arrangement, Dragon Door customers receive a 10% discount on their orders. Simply insert the discount code DD10 at checkout.