Month: September 2019

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Agency

from wiki:

Agency may either be classified as unconscious, involuntary behavior, or purposeful, goal directed activity (intentional action). An agent typically has some sort of immediate awareness of their physical activity and the goals that the activity is aimed at realizing. In ‘goal directed action’ an agent implements a kind of direct control or guidance over their own behavior.

A goal of mine for 2019 was to be more proactive and to really engage with life. That is how I started thinking about Human Agency, and how it could be applied to the fitness industry.

In my ideal world, the role of a Coach would be to educate their client/athlete to a certain point of understanding where they need the coach less and less. That is the basis of my whole approach. Each of these Posts have had in mind the idea of educating the reader to the point of being able to do it themselves.

It may take time to figure out this intuitive approach to training, but life is long too!

Taking Physical Agency will improve your ability to engage with your environment, maybe not making your life longer, but at least making it easier!

So,

Take Agency of your Health & Fitness!
(is that even grammatically correct?)

Create your own movement routine and figure out what works best for you.

Do what feels good but DON’T forget that you still have to train Strength (with resistance / weights).

Train intuitively but DON’T forget to train functional movements and to balance out your pushing and pulling movements.

The next few posts will help clarify how to adopt this approach to training.

There are certain rules / principles / ‘physiological triggers’ that when understood lead to a better understanding of how you should be training.

Until then,
Stay Strong!

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Body Awareness

Body Awareness involves Body Image as well as Proprioception.

Body Image,
is the picture of yourself you see in your head. The majority of people need to work on creating a healthier body image. It is unfortunate but we live in a society where ‘Image’ is important. I agree it is, but a “Healthy” body image is what we are after.

Proprioception,
is your physical body’s ability to feel. People often need work with this too, much of balance comes from your ability to ‘feel’ your centre of mass over your feet.

Improving these,
will enhance your life. Realize ‘You’ are your body & mind. Health in one carries benefits over to the other. Strengthening your proprioception and body image will lead only to a better You.

HOW?

  • Body Scan
    – scan your body head-toe, joint by joint – – just ‘feeling’ what state your body is in right now.
  • Visualization
    – imagine standing in front of a mirror, or imagine a specific body part. In your mind, You are in control – shape your image to reflect your goals.
  • Ideally Both Together!
    – imagining performing the movement while actually performing the movement …. very Meta!

This is an important topic, but very rarely talked about.

The truth is, with as little as 5 minutes of practice a day, you can make huge strides in improving your movement and your quality of life.

All it takes is actually doing that ‘practice’!!! = You must COMMIT to it.

There are just over 90 days left in this year, what are you going to do with them?

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Ever Day Movement

These are movements or exercises that you should practice every day.

There are literally an infinite amount of these movements out there, so you will eventually have to choose which ones work best for you.

Stick with about 10 different movements for 2 or 3 months. You MUST switch up the movements every quarter in order to sustain progress.

Quick reminder on what to be focusing one while performing these movements

  1. Breathing (synced with movement)
  2. Posture (maintained throughout)
  3. Vision (synced with movement)

Tips

  • choose exercises that balance out your body / daily activities
  • use a Test/Retest protocol to figure out which movements are best for you
  • do 1 rep for each decade you have been alive – for each exercise.
    (ex. if 40 – do 4 QUALITY reps on each exercise)

My Movement Routine consists of:

  • Joint Mobility
  • Spine Mobility
  • Asymmetry correction
  • Full Body Flow Movement / Play
  • Specific Movement Prep (if going into a workout)

I do 3 reps of each exercise with minimal rest. Since I have been doing this for years, I change up the movements every day. Some days my session is only ‘Play’ – using my intuition to do movements that feel good in the moment.

Now it is your turn to give it a try.

Follow my Instragram to see #EveryDayMovements – every, damn, day 🙂

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Key Performance Indicators

Are the critical (key) indicators of progress toward an intended result.

The ‘intended result’ in this case is physical performance.

KPI’s are not only valuable for determining progress, but also for determining workout “readiness.” Sometimes over-training can occur due to the other stresses of life. In this case, pushing through a workout is not going to make things better. Taking the day off of training is recommended, because if you catch effects of over-training early you can save the athlete the literal headaches that will occur throughout the rest of their day.

Tracking Baseline KPI’s will allow you to determine fitness readiness and catch early indications of excess fatigue.

What are these physical KPI’s anyway?

They are key activities / exercises that indicate those things discussed above.

Such as :

  • Grip Strength
  • Single Leg Balance
  • Bird Dog
  • Jump height/distance

Track at least 1 of these and you will reap the benefits over time.

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Play – the most effective workout

In previous posts I brought up the idea Flow and how performance is heightened when there is a certain ratio of Skill : Difficulty – and how Flow is synonyms with Happiness.

PLAY is an activity that brings happiness or at least enjoyment.

This post will explore why Play should be adopted into your movement routine.

First the obvious : adding Play into your movement routine will increase enjoyment as well as improve the quality of your performance.

But the not so obvious is what goes on in the brain.

  • Play literally re-wires the brain.

Play will keep you healthy just as much as exercise. The two together compound and enhance the effect. Play uses less effort while providing higher gains, making for a more effective workout!

HOW you adopt Play into your Training is up to you.

What Play-in-the-workout will involve is getting in touch with how you move. That is the whole point of this kind of Training i.e. learning to move better.

Consider a Test – Play – Retest Protocol

Example:

Do a 5 reps of a Goblet Squat –

Play around with the ‘Squat’ movement pattern. Focus on whatever is the most challenging part of the movement for you.

Do 5 more Goblet Squats –

Then ask yourself: was the second set better? same? or worse? and then Learn from the answer. Anything that makes your squat easier can be used as a corrective exercise specific to you!

And isn’t that what we all want?

Thats all for now,

hope this has made you consider playing around more in the gym!