Getting “Clarity” on Movement

Reflect for a moment on the importance of your body; how it feels and moves.  While we can all have a rich life mentally and spiritually, we still translate our lives into reality through the vehicle of our bodies.  As a result, one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is a strong, healthy, lean, coordinated and pain-free structure.

Many people set out to give themselves this gift each New Year.  But I'm sure you're aware of the many statistics that follow:

  • 85 – 90% of people starting an exercise program quit within the first six weeks because of pain or injury
  • Only 3% of Americans participate in daily exercise,
  • 78% of Americans don't exercise at all,
  • Etc., Etc...

These stats are the result of deep held beliefs of "how things should be."  Unfortunately, the cultural climate in the United States with regards to health, fitness and function has some very powerful and disturbing paradigms that need to change.  These paradigms are:

  1. The human body has inherent design flaws that result in eventual pain and dysfunction.
  2. Change takes lots of time.
  3. Close enough is good enough.

All of these self-evident truths are in fact, false.  The body is amazingly well designed to be athletic and functional at any age, and it CAN adapt very quickly when given the right stimulus.  When it’s properly cared for with a variety of movement and good food it is capable of utterly astounding feats as well as simple, but important, feats like playing with the kids after a long, hard day of work.  And this is true throughout our lifespan.

Many believe an inherent ‘design flaw’ exists in the human body that’s compounded with age.  As you get older you get pain, and movement is "dangerous" and you need to "take it easy."  But this logic is flawed… You still have the same parts you had as a child!  You still make energy in your body the same way; your joints have the same relative dimensions and mechanics as when you were a child; and you still have an immune system that fixes all your parts when they get hurt.

The design flaw argument doesn’t hold up.  Sure, aging factors into the equation but not nearly enough to contribute to the statistics above.

Your Brain

Understanding the faulty paradigms first starts in your brain.  The brain has one job… to stay alive.  Everything you do links back to this one job.  One of the ways a brain accomplishes survival is to develop habits.  The process of learning and becoming good at something is for it to become "habitual."  The brain is naturally wired to do this.  Habituation can occur, in the case of movement, literally within seconds.  Once habituation occurs the new skill is put on autopilot and ran in the background while the brain focuses on other “survival” tasks. 

But, the consequence of habituation is that once something has been learned we become hard-wired to resist changing it, e.g., if a joint has learned to move poorly through lack of use, stiffness from an injury, or constant repetitive movement at work, it will continue to move poorly.  A faulty movement pattern is now “mapped” in your brain.

Think of your brain as having a 3D map of your body from sensory receptors that live in the joints, muscles and skin.  With this map your brain is able to program and govern movement.  The ‘clearer’ your map the better your movement; the better, more accurate your movement the better chance you’re brain can predict its survival (job #1).  Conversely, the less clear your “movement map” the more likely your brain will be threatened by movement… survival becomes a little less easy for it to predict.

Ultimately, a clear movement map is a primal, hard-wired, need.  And if your brain is not confident that your movements are safe because of an unclear map, it’ll slow down and tighten up your movements (protection mode), and it’ll create pain.  (remember, your brain wants to keep you safe and pain is its primary signal for "unsafe!")

Lifestyles

Most adults have work and social environments that require a lot of sitting or repetitive movements: Class rooms, computers, cars, TV’s, etc.  It seems the older and more successful Americans become, less and less movement is needed to succeed.  Thus, poor movement becomes habituated, shrinking or blurring the “movement map.”

Conversely, think about children on a playground.  They're being wild!  Running and jumping, hanging upside down, stretching and reaching, rolling and turning, just having fun with movement.  Movement feels pleasurable to them, as it should.  They’re movement maps are clear because of a wide variety of multi-directional, multi-speed, multi-joint movements… PLAY!

Putting it Together

So, if we have a brain that maps things so it knows exactly how to move in advance, but it also wants to develop habits so movement is automated without much thought, and most “modern adults” participate in lifestyles that encourage very poor movement, can you see how this would create movement problems and hence the frightening statistics above? 

Take a brain that’s threatened by movement because of an unclear map and begin a rigorous exercise program and you’ll ultimately get failure to stick with the program because of pain and injury.  It’s like installing a racecar motor in an old VW bus.  The structure will fail under the stress of the powerful motor.  Most adults, through lack of any kind of variety of movement, have massively "unclear" maps in their brains and hence, 85 – 90% of them will fail in an exercise program and if they do continue change will happen slowly, if at all.

A blurred movement map can be “clarified.”  It just takes a little more preparation and thought before an exercise program to “reintroduce your brain to your body.”  This is done by starting to move each joint through multiple ranges of motion (pain free of course) and at multiple speeds.  It’s done by stimulating joint surfaces that have not had motion in a long time.  This reignites the brain.  The more joint surfaces that are stimulated the more brain activation one gets.  Ultimately, this clarifies the movement map and gives the brain a better chance at predicting survival, job #1!  This will decrease pain and make exercise and play fun and enjoyable again.

Depending on the level of “disuse and dysfunction” one may want to consult a professional first.  Good personal trainers are skilled in the art and science of identifying bad movement maps and creating a plan to “reintroduce the brain to the body.”  Mapping each joint with a  specific, controlled warm-up program is a good start.  Yes, those silly calisthenics you did in gym class as a kid served a real purpose.  However, they need to be done with focus and attention on the joints being targeted.  This stimulates the brain and decreases threat from the movements that follow.

Once you have a little “clarity,” start participating in play-type activities that will expose you to new and varied movements: Frisbee, soccer, climbing trees, basketball, beach volleyball, martial arts, and gym programs that involve multiple modes of exercise like kettlebells, barbells, dumbbells, and calisthenics.

To learn to LOVE movement, and hence, exercise, the REAL target of a good exercise program is the brain (and the 3D map inside it), not the muscles!  Change your brain and you’ll change your life…           

References:
1. Blakeslee, S., Blakeslee, M. (2007).  The Body Has a Mind of Its Own.  How Body Maps In the Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better.  Random House Publishing.

2. Doidge, N. (2007) The Brain That Changes Itself.  Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science.  Penguin Publishing.

About the Author:

Ryan Joiner is the founder of Athlon Fitness & Performance in San Luis Obispo specializing in comprehensive fitness and performance programs including movement re-training, weight loss, nutrition and sports performance.  He can be reached for comment at (805) 546-6070 or ryan@AthlonElite.com.

Activities: 
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