The Movement Guy

Your ability to move, the tension in your tissues, the movements which are met with a lightning bolt of pain, are all determined by your CNS

How your brain, your subconscious, feels about your ability to move - does it feel safe? Or, is even walking something to be feared? - determines the state of your tissues and ultimately your health

If you're constantly tense, sore and clunky in movement, it's because it feels the need to guard, it feels threatened and yanking on it with bands, intense bouts of stretching or trying to force it to open will only create more issues, more guarding, more dysregulation

That's why I use drills like this, the gait drills, the ball drills, they're all designed to expand your movement map, to teach the NS that it's safe to open up, that you aren't in danger from movement

To some this may sound daft, soft even, but if you've been there you'll know exactly what it feels like to be a prisoner of tension that nothing can ease and the constant overwhelming feelings that come with until you can't even handle the noise of your kids playing, that unrelenting buzz

I just mentioned in a previous post about how I don't really rate stretching and I think it creates a lot of issues, however that doesn't mean I don't like to use some end range work

Once someone is more advanced and they haven't got any events coming up, they're in the off-season etc, I'll start to probe the edges of the map and develop their ability to stabilise and create space in grey areas, the areas they don't spend loads of time

The key is that we are still moving, albeit slowly, and using the feedback from our BW and gravity to enhance our mind/muscle connection, creating new pathways and possibilities

These types of reps - slow, lots of time under tension, eccentric loading - are also really good for the tendons and muscles

I had an interesting and unexpected test of my work last night

I was walking in the dark and my right leg went straight into a ditch half my height, my left leg, the one with the reconstructed knee, was still on the path and my knee was at my head height

It was a complete shock, the earth disappeared and I had no time to react and my hips, knees, ankles and back were all put to the test, and I was completely fine

A few years back I'd have blown my knee, back and hip out, I literally once tore my adductor slipping on a rock and slipped a disc picking up underwear, for years stepping off a curb was scary, so for something like that to barely phase me means so much

That's what I'm trying to restore in myself and others, that child like pliability, movement variability and a Nervous System that can handle the unexpected

I try not to take too strong a stance on anything as I think most things have utility + I've been wrong about plenty over the years, but the more I learn and the more people I work with, the more I find myself questioning whether stretching has any use

It just doesn't make any sense to try to force a muscle open that the Nervous system has locked down, no matter how many breath drills you do

It's locked down for a reason and we need to figure out why and teach it how to activate and integrate again

All we're doing is creating instability and vulnerability which is just going to create more issues within the body and nervous system

I honestly think stretching creates far more issues than it solves

I love solving problems, no matter how complex but a bad back is always a special one for me, particularly when it's had a big impact on someone's life, as it often does

Unless you've experienced it it's hard to understand how impactful it is, how much it sucks, the frustration, the fear, the anger, the helplessness, the loss of control and the endless dead ends you pursue to try and fix it

The vast majority of what's out there is useless, most things will make it worse and even the stuff that helps creates a prison of movement that punished any deviation

I know what I share is unconventional but at some point the desire to get better overcomes the fear of looking like a fool

You can't stretch or mobilise your way out of back pain and no amount of treatments will correct faulty mechanics, you have to relearn how to move piece by piece, layer by layer, using your hypersensitivity and pain as a road map

You have to fix the side effects of the pain/damage and the faults that created it, restoring your movement ability

Something I've noticed as I get older is how difficult it is for people to change once they've locked into a path

Career, lifestyle, politics, training.... People pick something, a side, a system and that's it, finito, set for life, no matter how poorly it serves them

I've felt it, the pull to conform, to fit in, to be accepted, it's all I ever wanted as a kid after all, but for whatever reason there's something in my brain that just doesn't like anything that feels restrictive

I've walked away from countless jobs, various ways of training and even my own training cult once I realised I'd created a movement prison

That's what brought me to this point, that urge to keep asking questions, to keep mixing colours, to keep experimenting and seeing what I can create

At the end of the day, it's all made up and while things have moved forward in some ways, they've moved backwards in others and new problems require new perspective and solutions

Don't be afraid to get creative and move on from things that no longer serve you, no matter how much time you've spent on it or how hard it is, growth rarely comes without great discomfort

I tend to be very cautious when using load, it's not that I'm against it, it's just the last thing a lot of the people I work with need, is more tension - BW and gravity is more than enough

That being said it's a great tool and once I've got people moving quickly and more efficiently the next stage is to add load

But, like all the movements I do, I like to add complexity to it, twists, turns, planes, and I do my best to respect how the body likes to move, rather than whats best for a particular muscle or movement

Movement should restore, compliment and enhance, making everything easier and more beneficial, not degrade

With this one you want to be in a lunge position, foot pointed slightly inward (this helps access Hip IR) rotate inwards, shifting your weight above the lead leg, then finally, keeping your weight on that side, push through the foot and lengthen the hamstring and glute

These are the types of movements I usually use early in a session to help wake up and connect the tissues, ready for more complex movements

Think of it as mapping your body/movement, and learning how to put the pieces together that build smooth efficient movement in everything you do

I've always been stronger posteriorly than anteriorly, literally everything on the back has always developed better, my back, my triceps, my glutes and my hamstrings + when I first started on this movement experiment I went on a Nordic tangent thinking it would solve all my movement woes, it didn't, it just exacerbated my already developed posterior chain and movement issues, but I digress....

Something I've noticed in some clients, the more quady ones, is that they need a bit more focus on the hamstrings to help wake up that dormant neurology and bring balance to their movement

This is one of the drills I use to start that process and help to strengthen that mind/muscle connection

I've also got a side view vid with another client that I'll share this weekend

Give it a try and let me know how it feels

There's a lot of debate in the fitness/performance space at the minute with regards to 'patterns'

Functional, biomechanical, primal, dysfunctional.....

Some think it's all meaningless, just lift bro, others think you need to get shirtless and move into another movement prison that, is arguably better than a lot of what's out there (from a health perspective, not performance) but is still a prison nonetheless

I think it all has potential, all the movement, all the sports, all the hobbies, all the training systems, they're all colours to be used in a movement painting and it's our job to experiment and create, but.....

I've worked with people who are bedbound, pro athletes and everything in between and helped people who were told they'd never walk or stand, do both - there are definitely biomechanical patterns that when nourished do amazing things to a body and a person's ability to move

That's the patterns that my drills are based around, the gait cycle, contralateral movements, head over foot, whatever you wanna call it, their what I use to test, assess and restore someone's movement

However, I'm not trying to create a new way of doing things, a new system, I'm just trying to restore what's been lost and help people develop an understanding of movement so they can paint their own movement picture with whatever colours they see fit

It's all made up which means you can create too, no matter what the cultists and evidence based geeks say