HEALTH
REVIEW
Becoming a Supple
Leopard
The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury,
and Optimizing Athletic Performance
By Dr. Kelly Starrett
E
Excellent Tips on
Minimizing Pain &
Injury While Maximizing
Performance
A
t least three essential basics I
wish I’d learned early in life are
included in Becoming a Supple
Leopard (BASL): how to stand,
how to sit, and how to breathe.
While some of us were fortunate enough to have parents
and teachers advise us to sit up straight, stand up
straight, and breathe deeply from the diaphragm,
true clarity and specifics are seldom provided to
such a degree that decades later, pain and injury is
prevented and/or easily remedied through return
to optimal body positioning. Instead, all too often
I hear from friends and colleagues seeking a return
Most of us don’t notice
something is wrong with
our bodies until we feel
pain--what the authors
call “lagging indicators.”
46 | NEW CONSCIOUSNESS REVIEW
of mobility and a reduction in pain that even when
they get surgeries and take time off from movement, they still continue suffering from mobility
issues.
The three basic principles in BASL are: (1) if something’s not in the right place, put it in the right
place, (2) if something is not moving, get it moving, and (3) Work upstream and downstream of the