Premise of the blog:
Curiosity – try to look at the world through Amelie’s
perspective – specifically with regards to the shoulder, fitness/performance,
professional development.
Focus on foundation - Principles over tactics
On July 13, 2017 I had the
greatest honor of my life, becoming a father. My daughter, Amelie, has taught
me countless things in our 6 + months together, but she continues to amaze me
each day with her unbridled curiosity for everything in her world. This got me
thinking, how could I be more like Amelie? How can I be more curious?
My wife and I try to read to
Amelie every night before bed and this seems to spark Amelie’s curiosity. This
gave me the bright idea – I can spark my own curiosity by reading everything I
can get my hands on! I set a goal of reading 40 books this year and the
spectrum is far reaching – biographies of American forefathers, behavioral
psychology, fitness/performance, how to get your child to sleep, how to live on
chronic sleep deprivation. Did I mention that Amelie doesn’t do much sleeping?
I digress. My goal is to answer every burning question that I have in my head.
Sure, I can GTS for a quick fix, but if I am truly channeling my Amelie
curiosity I want to take a deeper dive into these subjects. Hence the topic for
this blog – the curiosity addiction and how to feed it.
Book # 1 – I decided to start
with Athletic Body in Balance by Gray Cook because it is a movement
classic for healthcare and fitness professionals alike. Rather than give you a
book report like my mom used to enforce each summer to complete my school
reading list, I will word vomit my takeaways, the low hanging fruit, and pearls
of wisdom that I took from this book.
10,000 foot view - how can we
better balance the body, specifically with regards to efficiency and effectiveness?
I have pilfered the definitions of efficiency and effectiveness from Gray Cook
because they are simple, yet elegant. We tend to focus our efforts on effectiveness – yielding results. The
ends justify the means. Why do the means get such a bad rep? Isn’t it the means
(poor movement patterns done thousands of times in order to achieve the ends)
that land people in PT in the first place? What about efficiency? Cook
describes efficiency as action without
wasted movement or unnecessary energy expenditure. Webster’s dictionary
couldn’t have described that better! When someone has an overuse injury, they
present with painful/dysfunctional movements that limit their energy
expenditure. If we can improve their
efficiency of movement, we can solve the question of “why did the patient hire
you?” My big take away from this book was: how can I maximize efficiency of
movement to improve effectiveness of movement?
Pearls of wisdom –
1. Efficiency of movement can be improved
by addressing (through assessment) and training
the weaknesses in your movement patterns.
2. Pyramid
of addressing weak links: Foundation of
pyramid is movement -> next block is physical performance -> top of
pyramid is skill.
3. Focus
on the foundation (of the pyramid) – improve how the body moves.
4. Babies don’t need to compensate,
because they do not lack mobility. They learn
through trial and error and feel, and develop the stability through repetition
of movement patterns. Learn through movement and focus on the foundation.
Be like Amelie!
5. Deep
squat starts with the toe touch – relaxes the lumbar spine (see video below) – babies first learn
to squat from the ground up.
My weakness – I went through
Cook’s Functional Movement Screen and tested out with the deep squat being my
greatest weakness! This is Bad News Bears, considering I am trying to layer
fitness and performance on top of a faulty movement pattern.
My curiosity – can I learn to
squat with my daughter, Amelie?
To be performed every morning –
10-12 repetitions…
Time to practice what I preach –
my patients have heard ad nauseam about a “brushing the teeth for the body”
routine. Every morning, have a movement practice to undo this stiffness of
sleeping. Every evening, have a movement practice to undo the stiffness of
sitting behind a desk. The Japanese have been airing a radio broadcast of
morning calisthenics since 1928 – time to bring that tradition to good ole’
USA! I will incorporate the deep squat progression, as taught by Gray Cook,
into my morning movement practice and track my changes in the deep squat. Stay
tuned!
