A simple but practical method using multimode-single mode fiber Bragg grating (FBG) for cladding mode based simultaneous measurement of strain and bending is proposed and investigated experimentally. Experimental results show that the intensity ratio between cladding mode and FBG resonance of hetero-core FBG show monotonous changes following with the increase of deflection, by which strain and bending discrimination can be achieved by measuring the wavelength shift of FBG resonance and ratiometrically detecting the intensity changes between cladding modes and FBG resonance. (C) 2013 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.