On learning

As a teacher of movement and a health practitioner I have come to realise that although the problems people come to me for manifest in the physical body the root cause is in the mind. Because the body and mind do not exist in a dichotomy but rather as one. In modern society’s obsession with characterisation and categorisation they have oversimplified the human being into component parts as they would an inorganic thing like a car. But the body is not a thing. It is a process.

So is learning. And often the missing secret ingredients are not physical.

These include:
-Belief, trust or faith
-Patience, dedication and discipline
and lastly
-Awareness and focus, the ability to feel rather than visualise or simply think/cogitate

I will cover these 3 ingredients in more detail in upcoming posts. But it’s the last one I find most people lack even if they have the first two.

Finesse vs Fitness

All these recent articles about seemingly simple movements that everyone thinks they can do have lead many people to think I have lost it as a trainer and an Exercise Physiologist.  But what a lot of people have not understood is the focus on quality of movement that is no longer commonplace any more. Too many people believe that what they need is physical fitness when in fact they really need physical finesse.

“Let him that would move the world first move himself.”
~Socrates

In the modern world of movement where fitness in the form of numbers, ie where how far and how heavy have become more important than how well, people think of movement quality as ‘only technique’.  All they want to train is crude muscular strength in singular movements and actions.  It’s like watching robots in action.
But like Socrates said, first learn to move yourself.  What is missing is physical finesse.

“Whaddya bench/deadlift/squat etc?”ring a bell?

What about lateral movements or uneven weight loadings? Or combination moves?  This is still really just component parts until they get combined.  

Don’t load your squat pattern if you can’t safely squat in that range unweighted.

If you think about it in terms of cooking, you must first learn to cook ingredients well separately.  But ultimately to make a meal you have to combine.  But only once you can actually cook each item separately.  Otherwise you just end up with an inedible mess.

The focus should not only be on physical fitness but grace and ease of movement.  On physical finesse. Not physical fitness. Because muscles are limited.  That is like only updating the hardware of a computer.

When in fact the software dictates what you can actually do with the computer.  And no amount of muscle can compensate for poor movement patterns.  Just look at all the big, tough lifters and athletes who are injured doing seemingly simple movements and often with very little weight. When I look at movement, I don’t focus on how many, how long but how well. On body positioning, integration and coordination.

The easiest way to assess movement pattern isn’t doing random movements or different activities that are deemed ‘functional’ and calling it a screen. They are tests.

The easiest way to assess ease of movement and injury risk is gait analysis.  Or watching someone walk.

Most are simply catching themselves as they fall in and out of balance.  Obvious injury risk.

Or shuffling, which leads to falls risk as the individuals in question age and lose ankle mobility due to misuse.

Or waddling walks due to poor control.  These resemble warmup exercises in sumo but whereas in sumo they are used as specific body connection exercises rather than locomotion, the individuals who use it outside the ring cannot walk any other way.  Despite their obvious size and strength, sumo wrestlers have MUCH more physical finesse than the average fitness fanatic.  Just look at the way they can get up and down even with their size.

And lastly there are those who think of themselves as models or individuals with extra special physiques who combine the waddling and the falling with strutting whereby they purposefully walk awkwardly to show off some particular body part.  Highly robotic and disjointed.

This is because most people rely on muscular strength to compensate for poor movement when they are younger.  This catchall of ‘fitness’ that is being promoted.  When instead of true fitness (let alone finesse), they are simply reinforcing their poor patterns through repetition and loading.

This leads to injury and musculoskeletal issues that really surface when they age.  Whereas those with physical finesse have much less issues with their bodies even at a more advanced age.

I know multiple individuals in their 60s who focus on physical finesse who walk better than the average fitness fanatic and even fitness trainers.

It has little to do with crude muscular strength and more to do with neuromuscular control and coordination.  It’s not measurable in numbers but perceived by those keen of eye and even by laymen.  The difference is one of grace and ease of movement.  Think Roger Federer, not Rafael Nadal.

Even Japanese anime characters know this:

“Until you are able to move around easily, you are not ready to start anything more intense than that.”

~King Kai

So train your movements not just your muscles.  Because what you are really training is your neuromuscular system, ie your mind body connection.  Muscular strength supports this, it cannot replace it.  Read that again.  Neuromuscular strength.  Neural and then muscle!

Weight belt and gloves not required!