Movement Assessment for Athletes, With Cody Plofker

Based on Episode 82 of the Just Fly Performance Podcast, a conversation between host Joel Smith and strength coach Cody Plofker.

Cody Plofker’s approach to movement assessment starts with a warning: do not stretch that tight muscle yet. A strength coach who came to the Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) after his own body broke down, Plofker blends PRI with common screening systems like the FMS and SFMA to answer one question before he intervenes, is a restriction actually a mobility problem, or is the brain holding a muscle tight for a reason? Get that wrong, he argues, and you can make an athlete worse. In this conversation he walks through how he assesses an athlete from the table to the squat rack.

Key Takeaways

• Assess before you stretch. Blindly stretching a tight muscle can make things worse.
• The key question is mobility versus motor control. Most restrictions are not a true mobility problem.
• “Tight” ankles and hip flexors are usually tone, not short muscles. Reposition the pelvis first.
• Go after pelvic position first. Hip internal rotation is not valgus; it is how you avoid valgus.
• Coach the squat by managing center of mass. Drive the knees forward and the hips back, loaded through an anterior counterbalance.

Assess before you stretch

Plofker’s core message is that stretching a muscle because it feels tight is treating a symptom you have not diagnosed. He is not against stretching, but he wants an assessment first.

I just don’t think you should be blindly doing it if something feels tight. It should be after an assessment where you determine that something is a true mobility issue, or at least a tone issue, and not just a motor control issue. You can actually make something worse if you’re stretching something you shouldn’t.

His example is the hamstring that always feels tight. Often it is tight because it is doing a job, and taking that away backfires.

If you’re stretching a hamstring, that can actually increase back pain, because those hamstrings are the only thing holding onto your pelvis to get you stability. You take that stability away, and your brain just freaks out and goes into panic.

His assessment protocol, from table to standing

Plofker has moved away from running the FMS as his main tool and toward a PRI-led sequence, though he still teaches new coaches the FMS as an entry point. His own intake runs from passive table tests to standing movement.

I’ll start with a passive leg raise, check supine hip internal and external rotation, then the adduction drop or the modified Ober’s test. Then I’ll get them standing and go through a modified version of the SFMA, look at their toe touch, multi-segmental flexion, extension, and rotation.

He often tries a corrective right there on day one, partly to earn buy-in and partly as another data point: whether a fix works tells him more about the athlete’s presentation than the static test alone. He is candid that not every corrective he picks lands the first time.

Mobility versus motor control: the question that changes everything

The single most useful thing Plofker took from the FMS and SFMA world is not a score, it is a fork in the road that redirects the whole intervention.

The biggest thing that comes from the FMS and SFMA logic is, is it a mobility issue, or a stability and motor control issue? I see so many people thinking everything is a mobility issue, and you just have to mobilize and roll and stretch. It’s bringing the wrong tool for the job.

With the athletes he sees, the answer is lopsided. By his estimate, 90 to 95 percent of the time a restriction is not a true mobility problem, which means cranking on the muscle is not doing what the coach thinks it is doing.

Why “tight” ankles usually are not short

Ankles are Plofker’s favorite illustration. The stiff-calved field athlete rarely has short muscle; he has tone from holding himself up in an extension pattern with his weight pitched forward.

Those calves aren’t actually truly short. There’s just neurological tension in them because you’re trying to hold yourself up against gravity and not fall over. Stretching is not going to do it. What you need to do is actively drive your center of mass backwards.

The deeper cause is often a hip that will not extend, so the body borrows the back and calves to do the job instead. Fix the source and the “tight” ankle frequently resolves on its own.

If you regain that hip extension and get the hamstrings and glutes to extend the hip again, usually you’ll find those calves are no longer a problem.

He is not dogmatic about it, though. A genuine joint restriction, common in older, heavily trained pros who have not moved well in years, is exactly when a banded ankle mobilization earns its place.

Hip internal rotation, and why it is not valgus

Hip internal rotation gets a bad reputation, Plofker says, because coaches confuse it with knee valgus and default to “knees out.” He argues the opposite.

Most people are so enamored with the glutes that they think we’ve got to drive the knees out. Hip internal rotation is so important, and it’s not valgus. I would make the argument that having hip internal rotation is how you avoid valgus.

As with everything in his system, the starting point is not a stretch but position.

The first thing I’m going to do is check pelvic position, and almost everything starts with that. You’ve got to go after the pelvic position first. I’m not going to stretch something until we get that.

Because internal rotation is coupled with hip flexion, an athlete stuck in anterior pelvic tilt is already parked in a position that steals it. Plofker repositions the pelvis first (getting hamstrings and abs to quiet the back and quads), rechecks, and only then, if range is still missing, reaches for a targeted drill like a posterior hip capsule mobilization. He also notes a performance upside: the same internal rotation coaches fear provides a pre-stretch of the external rotators and abductors, which can let an athlete produce more power on extension.

Restoring hip extension

Plofker assesses hip extension with the adduction drop rather than the Thomas test, which he finds hard to read, pulling the femur back and watching where it stops and how it feels. Then he separates two causes.

Is it just a positional issue, where the pelvis is in anterior tilt so they’re starting in hip flexion? Or is it a hip flexor tightness issue, the psoas or overactive quads? I don’t think it’s a true tightness. I think it’s more of a tone issue trying to hold onto the lumbar spine for stability.

The payoff is buy-in. When an athlete can extend one hip but not the other, Plofker films them sprinting and shows them the difference on video, tying the table finding directly to lost speed. As he puts it, a sixteen-year-old does not care about gaining hip extension, but they care a lot about being faster, and that is the point of the whole assessment.

The squat progression: manage the center of mass

When it is time to load, Plofker treats the squat as a problem of managing the center of mass, and he refuses the usual either/or of “sit back” versus “knees forward.”

I actually want both. I’m going to cue somebody to drive their hips back, but I also want them to drive their knees forward. A lot of times, why back squats mess up people’s backs is that they’ve been told to sit back so far, because people fear loading the knee, that they’re really just loading a back.

He starts most athletes with a reaching (offset) plate squat, a light weight held out in front, which he calls almost the anti-squat because it works by pitching the center of gravity forward so the body counters by settling it back.

The squat is really all about managing center of gravity. A light load out in front puts their center of gravity forward, so the brain counteracts by driving it backwards. That lets them get some posterior tilt and open up their hips into a deeper squat.

From there he progresses to the goblet squat and double-kettlebell rack squat, keeping the load anterior, and often lands on a safety bar over a front squat because it spares the shoulder mobility a front rack demands. He frames the range problem with an elevator analogy borrowed from Justin Moore: a neutral pelvis gives you the full hundred degrees of hip flexion, but starting in fifteen degrees of anterior tilt leaves only eighty-five, and that shortfall is where the arched back, caving knees, and butt wink come from. And past a point, more barbell weight stops being the answer; his NFL combine athletes squatting well over 600 pounds did not need more strength, which pushed him toward velocity-based training at more specific speeds.

Frequently asked questions

Should you stretch a tight muscle?
Not automatically. Plofker stretches only after an assessment shows a true mobility or tone restriction, because a muscle is often tight to provide stability, and stretching it can make things worse, like a hamstring whose tightness is holding the pelvis together.

How do you tell a mobility problem from a motor-control problem?
That is the core question of his assessment, drawn from FMS and SFMA logic. He uses table tests and standing movement to decide whether a restriction is a true joint or tissue limitation or a stability and motor-control issue, and in his population it is the latter 90 percent or more of the time.

Why are my ankles or calves always tight?
Usually not because the calves are short, but because they carry neurological tone from holding you upright in an extension pattern with your weight forward. Driving the center of mass back and restoring hip extension often resolves it without stretching, though a genuine joint restriction can warrant a banded ankle drill.

Is hip internal rotation the same as valgus?
No. Plofker argues they are different, and that having hip internal rotation is actually how you avoid valgus. He restores it by fixing pelvic position first rather than stretching, since internal rotation is coupled with hip flexion.

What is a reaching (offset) plate squat?
A squat done holding a light weight out in front of the body. The anterior counterbalance pitches the center of gravity forward so the athlete settles it back, which lets them get a little posterior tilt, open the hips, and reach a deeper, cleaner squat before any real load is added.

About the authors

Cody Plofker is a strength and conditioning coach who co-founded ADAPT Performance and Rehab in New Jersey and has worked with athletes from high school through the NFL. A former competitive golfer and Olympic weightlifter, he is known for integrating Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) principles with movement-screening systems like the FMS and SFMA.

Joel Smith is the host of the Just Fly Performance Podcast and the founder of Just Fly Sports, a former collegiate strength and track and field coach focused on speed, power, and athletic development. Listen to the full episode with Cody Plofker on Just Fly Sports.