I Know Everything, I Know Nothing
/There is something beautiful about taking everything you know about a subject and turning it completely on its head. The depth of our attachment to that “thing” might make the task seem impossible. Some of us identify hard with the thing we do. Our ego never wants to be wrong. “Don’t you dare question who I am or what I believe in. Let me remain where I’m at. It’s comfortable here. This is the way it has always been done.”
I get it. Change is a struggle. We’ve all been through it to some extent. I can only imagine what reptiles feel like when they’re shedding their skin. I’ve watched snakes do it. It seems to take forever. It’s arduous. It looks painful as a mother fucker. Maybe worst of all...it leaves them completely vulnerable. 🧐
I’ve studied the complexity of human movement in some form all of my life. I feel as if I have been in a constant state of wonderful evolution for a really long time. I’d grab on to some things along the way, but never too tight. Sure, I’d debate my side of the story when I felt strongly about something, but I’ve always listened; always stayed observant; always considered everything. Unless it’s ground that I’ve plowed before, I’ll give it a fair shake.
I turn down offers regularly to “workout” with folks because I’m not willing to go through the process of unwinding the damage caused by said “workouts.” That’s not to sound elitist, I’m better than no one, but I will protect myself and the time I have left on this planet. Time is the only commodity that matters and it’s important to not waste any of it. Voluntarily making mistakes I’ve made in the past would be a huge waste of this commodity.
We’re either moving forward or we’re moving backward.
I’ve been hesitant in the past to share new ideas for fear of insulting colleagues, friends, mentors, etc. Some folks are so embedded, they’d almost fight you for helping them advance forward. Strange. I’m not willing to fight with another human over dogma. We’re all good humans just trying to find our way. Not to mention, we all choose our own struggle and if someone is not willing to walk the road less traveled, that’s none of anyone else’s business, but the person walking that path.
My hesitation to share for fear of judgment and/or confrontation is helping no one, however. Holding on to good information is never a good thing. There are good people in the world who desperately need us and our ideas. They need to be stripped of their pain. They need to understand how to TRULY harness their power in a FORWARD trajectory. They need to elevate to the next level of their sport. They need the breath work because their lungs are failing them. They need the meditative work because their minds are failing them. Their health depends on the fact that calories ARE NOT calories. Some grandfather wants to be on the ground with his grandkids and he deserves to be. Fuuuuuuuck anyone who wants to get in the way of those solutions.
Here’s where I stop holding on and possibly ruffle some feathers...
A while back, I was reminded that malice is malice even if the perpetrators are ignorant of their wrong doing. Sometimes, we have the best of intentions for someone else, but we find out later that our advice was shit. We’ve all done it. I’ve had plenty of clients in my past sitting on pec deck and leg extension machines doing work that was, not only, NOT serving them, but making them physically worse humans. I didn’t know any better at the time, but I do now. The important part is to own our mistakes, correct them, and move forward. What else can we do?
My studies have brought me to a conclusion that the spine has a forward gear and a reverse gear. The reverse gear is for picking things up. This is something that takes up an incredibly small portion of the average human’s life yet we train it like it’s the most important thing we’ve ever come across. Squats, deadlifts, Oly lifts, etc. Everything you do in a training scenario is, literally, programming your tissues. If you program your tissues to pick things up enough, especially heavy loads that really spark the nervous system, the patterns behind the movement embed themselves in your nervous system and you will end up tattered and broken. When you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else. You are a being of forward locomotion. Say yes to your forward gear more than your reverse gear.
Maybe you’ve done a ton of mobility work in your life. So much so that you end up being referred to as the Mobility WOD guy...but you still end up on an operating table. You’re the NFL athlete who’s coaches received a certification chalked full of words like “range of motion,” “functional range,” etc. that put you in positions that were supposed to save you from injury, but here you are...on an operating table. You’re the weightlifter who lives and dies by “toes out 10-15 degrees and in your heels” your entire lifting career...and here you are getting your ACL or Achilles repaired.
The common denominator, you ask? Training the reverse gear of a forward locomoting spine under heavy loads. No matter how you try to offset it, you’re teaching your body that toes out, in the heels is the way to operate. Once that position becomes you and you move forward with that type of patterning, the arch collapses putting a nice little tug on the lower leg that elongates the ACL and well...you know the rest. The Achilles suffers from this position as well. More traditional box jumps for my meniscus, please.
The shitty part: The problem rears its ugly head years into training and no one ever puts two and two together. They blame themselves for poor positioning in the moment and not the system. Or they chalk it up to years of wear and tear and “well, it happens.” No, it doesn’t happen...unless you train that reverse gear over and over and over and over day in and day out.
So, here I am, working my rotational slings because they’re worth more than we’ve ever given them credit for. Working a coiling core instead of bracing because bracing could single handedly be the worst advice ever`. Staying out of my heels because sitting into the heels is horrible advice for a forward moving animal. Keeping my head over my foot because...balance, alignment, and physics. Maintaining a positive shin angle with the knee over the toe because I’m moving forward in life. My inside ankle bone is high because when that arch collapses, that knee goes valgus and there goes the ACL and/or the Achilles. The opposite foot is going heels out because that’s how our anatomy is designed to move on the toe off during forward locomotion. Pay attention to the hips and knees. Bow the knee out, corner it upon stepping forward with the opposite foot where the opposite knee now bows out. While one side is bowing, the opposite side is cornering. Rinse and repeat, every step. That’s energy. That’s how everything in the universe operates. Everything reciprocates. Everything spirals.
🧬 🌀
I’m here to turn everything I know on its head.
This is evolution.
This is growth.
This is me putting my best foot forward.
This is being human.
Stay tuned...more to come.