Automated Processes
Automated Processes
At Work, We Seek Automation; Why Not for Ourselves?
“Automation is the embodiment of the old adage, ‘work smarter, not harder.’ But automation is much more complex than simply flipping an ‘on’ switch.” — Unkown
Worth Listening To
This week’s highlighted podcast delves into the intricacies of neuromuscular strength, specifically DNS — Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization. Dr. Regan Wong is a sports physical therapist who works with the Texas Rangers MLB team.
What core strength really is, and why it’s so important for the recruitment of the core muscles to be automatic.
How to spot muscular developmental discrepancies in kids. How these discrepancies manifest as we age.
What impact does having a weak core have on the rest of the “global system” of muscles throughout the body?
Other Learning This Week:
Lawrence Krauss’ Origins Podcast — Ricky Gervais on comedy, emotional responses, philosophy, religion, and physics.
Lawrence Krauss’ Origins Podcast — Noam Chomsky on recent history and current events.
Peter Attia’s Blog — You’re never too old to start exercising – just ask a 93-year-old rowing champion
It reminded me of the quote, “The best time to start was yesterday; the second-best time is now.”
Grip Strength is a strong predictor of mortality as we age — Grip Strength Predicts Cause-Specific Mortality in Middle-Aged and Elderly Persons
Grip Strength’s relationship to the risk of Cardiovascular Disease — Handgrip strength is inversely associated with fatal cardiovascular and all-cause mortality events
Sahil Bloom’s Twitter Post: His training plan and going from 6 months of running to doing a 2:57:31 marathon.
Conversations With a Personal Trainer
I had an absolutely wonderful experience and conversation with a client this past Monday. She is only in her second month of working with me and initially came to me to add strength training to her already vigorous routine of running, swimming, walking, and yoga. In her early 60s, she is well aware of what happens to skeletal muscle as we get older.
She explained that she ran 10 miles over the weekend and, despite her legs being exhausted, she was able to do two things really well:
Keep her core engaged.
Relax her shoulders.
These are two fundamental elements of running that I teach. As a result, she described feeling no knee pain and being able to run faster. So unbelievably cool!
Training Our Body’s Supercomputer
How often do we think about how we run? Can you recall learning to run properly? Unless you were an elite athlete or had parents who knew what to look for, probably not. At a certain point, we just figured it out.
It wasn’t until early 2015, at 24 years old, in my pursuit of becoming a Marine Corps officer, that someone finally said, “Did you know you do this when you run?” He demonstrated kicking his right leg in a windmill fashion rather than in a straight, forward-and-back motion — Staff Seargent Hildenbrandt, I am eternally grateful for you finally showing me what I was doing wrong. For my entire life, when I would run, my right leg would windmill or flair out to the side. I never knew. For 24 years, I had been incorrectly training my supercomputer: this is how you should run.
Have you ever tried replacing a bad habit with a good habit? It takes time, right? You may solve the problem once, but then the bad habit creeps back up again. Unless we keep practicing the right habit over and over, that bad habit will not go away.
As a personal trainer, I still had no idea how to solve my bad running form. Naturally, I hired a personal trainer, Brian Wesolowski, who mentored me during my years at Lifetime Fitness. Within our first two sessions, he identified the problem and coached me on how to correct it. In just one hour of work, we solved a 24-year-old error in my neuromuscular input for how to run.
Automating the Process
Here is the tricky part. As many of you know, I ceaselessly ask you to think during your workouts: “Where do you feel it? Do you feel your glutes working? Do you feel your shoulder blades pinching together?” Why?
“We all have an unconscious mind. And we pay so little attention to this part of us that really is the biological supercomputer… There are millions and millions of things going on under the surface, much of which comes from either biological predispositions or habits over time. Thought processes, patterns. This unconscious mind, this supercomputer, is doing all of these things at the speed of light… 95% of the iceberg is the unconscious mind.” — Dr. Paul Conti on the Huberman Lab podcast.
Every day, we are training our supercomputer. When we exercise, we are training it on the movement patterns we execute. When we are inactive for prolonged periods of time, we are still training it. It is how we train our unconscious that matters.
Functional Movement has become a cliche. But what it really means to exercise functionally is to consciously train our unconscious mind to learn how to move correctly.
One example you can practice on your own is very simple: Walking.
Everyone knows how to walk (assuming we have the physical ability to be able to walk). But do you walk correctly?
If you’ve ever experienced acute lower back pain, you’ve probably noticed your abdominal muscles working excessively hard, maybe even to the point where they hurt. When we walk, all of our core muscles, not just our abs should automatically engage. Our core is comprised of the following muscles:
Transverse Abdominis
Pelvic Floor muscles
Gluteus Maximus
A group of lower back muscles:
Erector Spinae (extension of low back)
Multifidus (rotation of low back)
Iliopsoas (3 muscles that facilitate hip mobility)
*Honorable mention to the Latissimus Dorsi*
How are all of these muscles supposed to work together simultaneously? It’s hard enough to focus on one muscle at a time, let alone five! Automation. Repeating the same process over and over again. The next time you go for a walk, try the following steps and see if it makes a difference:
Roll your shoulders back, open your chest, and “brace” your abdomen as though you are tightening a belt around your waist. While doing so, take a deep breath in.
Be sure not to “suck in” your stomach! This makes your abdominal muscles stretch and, therefore, weaker.
Exhale slowly and relax your shoulders, but keep your abdomen braced.
As you step forward, keep your toes pointed upward in what’s called ankle dorsiflexion. Strike the ground with your heel, and use your gluteus maximus (butt muscle) to pull yourself forward.
With each stride, try to pull yourself forward from your hips as though you are gliding over the ground (instead of stomping the ground, which happens when you walk flat-footed).
As you walk, keep your chest out, your shoulders relaxed, and your chin up. This should make it much easier to keep your core muscles engaged simultaneously!
Do you feel a difference?
When Brian helped me correct my running form, it did not mean I was able to automatically run really well and suddenly run marathons. No. It took an extraordinary amount of work. Every session began with, “OK, Eric, one mile on the treadmill.” And each session, I would have to beat my previous session’s mile or… face the consequences. For over a year, seldom missing a week, we operated our sessions that way. In high school, my fastest run was approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds. By the time I was done with my sessions, my fastest run was 5 minutes and 28 seconds, and I was able to complete the Marine Corps Officer 3-mile running test in under 20 minutes — enough to pass.
Why am I telling you this? Because it is possible to change your body’s movements, reduce or even eradicate pain, and do things you may never have thought possible. But there is no magic pill. It will take work.
My closing question to you is this: What would you like to be able to do but don’t because it either seems too difficult or causes you pain?