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What do we think of Kelly Starrett here?


Jonas Hohmann Hohmann
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Jonas Hohmann Hohmann

Hey guy,

what do we-  well , YOU - think of Kelly Starrett here?
On my opinion, he seems like a not-fit-at-all, stiff, mock-"guru" type of guy who shouldnt be telling me anything because his techniques dont seem to work on himself.

 

 
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Daniel Burnham

He is a physical therapist and has a lot of good stuff. I don't use it much and actually went over a good bit of it with my physical therapist to see what her thoughts were. In general she thought a lot of the stuff was good too.

What I kinda dislike, but not to say it's ineffective, is his method of forcing things back into alignment with barbells and such. I am of the opinion if mobility is part of your everyday routine and your movements are all done correctly things will tend to fall into place. You won't need to force everything back twice a week.

His book is good though and worth a read.

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Jonas Hohmann Hohmann

What I kinda dislike, but not to say it's ineffective, is his method of forcing things back into alignment with barbells and such. I am of the opinion if mobility is part of your everyday routine and your movements are all done correctly things will tend to fall into place. You won't need to force everything back twice a week.

 

I agree 100 % on this part of your response. Many of his techniques seem brutal, and quite unnatural.

Thanks for your response.

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Luka Kopusar

i think it is a good book with lots of good information, that was not made up by a douchebag/bro science all the way. 

I like the last part about self-massage techniques and other stretching material. 

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Jan Reipert

Hey guy,

what do we-  well , YOU - think of Kelly Starrett here?

On my opinion, he seems like a not-fit-at-all, stiff, mock-"guru" type of guy who shouldnt be telling me anything because his techniques dont seem to work on himself.

 

what the hell? he is extremely mobile. which of his techniques do not work on himself? i read his book, follow his youtube-channel and all i can say is that a lot of his stuff is pure gold.

 

of course he comes off as some kind of guru and will tell you that stretching alone will never work and you need to use his techniques but guess what: thats called marketing. 

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Robert Rowland

Kelly is very well versed in biomechanics and I agree with his emphasis on turning the deep squat into a natural resting position, but I find his method too time consuming and very impractical unless you live inside of a CrossFit Gym or own every band, ball, and bar under the sun. Most of his WODs are short term mobility fixes that would eventually autocorrect if you follow an intelligently designed program (i.e., GB programs). Grinding your ass into a lacrosse ball might improve your tissue quality for a while, but it's not going to give you a pancake. You're not going to foam roll yourself into a full pike stretch.

That said, there are many cases where knowledge of small adjustments in stretch technique or mechanically assisted body position DO make a world of difference.

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Jan Reipert

Kelly is very well versed in biomechanics and I agree with his emphasis on turning the deep squat into a natural resting position, but I find his method too time consuming and very impractical unless you live inside of a CrossFit Gym or own every band, ball, and bar under the sun. Most of his WODs are short term mobility fixes that would eventually autocorrect if you follow an intelligently designed program (i.e., GB programs). Grinding your ass into a lacrosse ball might improve your tissue quality for a while, but it's not going to give you a pancake. You're not going to foam roll yourself into a full pike stretch.

That said, there are many cases where knowledge of small adjustments in stretch technique or mechanically assisted body position DO make a world of difference.

starrett uses a lot of contract-relax-stretching-techniques for almost every body part

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 His splits are close. Kelly is pretty damn strong but has some old injuries affecting his wrists. I don't think he can clean a barbell at all but I wanna say his DL is 450-500.

He hangs out with Mark Bell a lot and his wife is nice and pretty intelligent to talk to.

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Jason Yamada-Hanff

I've used some of Kelly's mobility recommendations and have found some of them helpful. I think he deserves props for creating broad awareness of mobility, and anyone in the CrossFit community who argues that form is important is keeping a huge number of people out of constant injury, but... I've got a lot of complaint about him:

I tried Kelly's squatting advice for a few days--keep feet perfectly straight and push knees out to the side of the feet. My knees ached pretty bad on those days. I've had former pro athletes look at his book and warn me away from the form recommendations Kelly makes on the movements that they know about. Look at the squats and the handstand pushups and tell me that you've ever seen any professional doing the move Kelly's way.

Kelly recommends bracing for a straight spine at all times. Alignment is good, but the "you-are-doing-every-movement-wrong-unless-you-are-bracing-with-straight-spine" advice seems 1) absurd hyperbole, 2) not very "supple leopard-esque", and 3) contrary to the idea that you want to be strong and injury-free during varied movements when your knee/back/shoulder will inevitably not be in an ideal position. Coach Sommer's recent podcast with Robb Wolf nails this last idea and solidified why I feel that Kelly misses the mark here.

The bro-speak can get pretty irritating. In the end, I find that if you listen/read closely he does the standard bro-science thing of mixing some good ideas about physiology with some wild speculation and over-interpretation. "Generating torque" means nothing when the location and direction of torque is not specified. "Voodoo flossing" does make a joint feel pretty good for a while, but he can offer no account for why it works nor even a good sense that it isn't actually harming you in the long run. Why is feet forward/knees out the best form for a squat? Because of "stability and maximum torque, bro," which you always always want as much as possible, apparently even if it takes smaller and more vulnerable structures and puts them in a weird position *and* with more force on them.

At this point, I just don't trust Kelly anymore--listening/reading him puts me in the "pain cave" now :-P . All of my mobility and flexibility improvements have come from Coach Sommer and Kit.

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  • 6 months later...

It seems like people on here tend to get annoyed by and therefore turned off by Kelly.  I find that sort of odd.  Sure, he can be a bit annoying with his lingo. But I have to admit - his material, more than anything else, has completely improved my mobility and functionality.  The material is very, very good, imo. 

 

From years of sports, working out, and injuries, I had tweaked shoulders, a knee issue and overall restricted mobility.  Kelly's videos as well as his postural cues and advice has essentially helped me completely rehab myself.  It's pretty shocking really.  The use of lacrosse balls to work out kinks has been awesome too.

 

I'm 40 yrs old and was really in need of this sort of stuff, so maybe most on here are too young and haven't yet put enough miles on their bodies to need to worry about his stuff.  But for a guy like me, his material is an absolute Godsend.

 

I'm frankly surprised that more people on here aren't more into him.

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JonasPortugal

It seems like people on here tend to get annoyed by and therefore turned off by Kelly.  I find that sort of odd.  Sure, he can be a bit annoying with his lingo. But I have to admit - his material, more than anything else, has completely improved my mobility and functionality.  The material is very, very good, imo. 

 

From years of sports, working out, and injuries, I had tweaked shoulders, a knee issue and overall restricted mobility.  Kelly's videos as well as his postural cues and advice has essentially helped me completely rehab myself.  It's pretty shocking really.  The use of lacrosse balls to work out kinks has been awesome too.

 

I'm 40 yrs old and was really in need of this sort of stuff, so maybe most on here are too young and haven't yet put enough miles on their bodies to need to worry about his stuff.  But for a guy like me, his material is an absolute Godsend.

 

I'm frankly surprised that more people on here aren't more into him.

His advice on squatting position is one of the worse things you can read. If you follow it (you say you're 40), you'll destroy your knees.

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Ronnicky Roy

It's not so much that his material is bad, but his mindset as far as repairing an issue. It's all about the quick fix with very little prep work. If you cant get into position for a movement, he'll give you info so you can then follow up by saying "now go all out!".

That's the advice that gets people injured. He offers good stretches and exercises, but shitty advice.

If you're looking to him for solely mobility information, I would say go ahead. He's a good resource for improving mobility. But anything else, tread softly

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Ronnicky Roy

Best info I found from him was on hip mobility. I also happened to come across that same info on "the art of manliness" about a month earlier. His video was more for intricacies of the stretches

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