How you move –
In life. In the gym. When you wake up and hop out of bed. In the evenings. When you are stressed, calm, infuriated, ecstatic.
How you move is BASED on what is reinforced.
You move through practices that have become habits.
Practice then, is the fulcrum for our progression into something better or our regression into something less than.
Practices matter because practices change the linkages between neurons in your brain.
So if you want to BECOME, you must make room for practice.
Physical qualities such as strength and endurance are based on a multitude of factors. Muscle type, muscle size, training age (how long you’ve been training), skill level, neuro-muscular adaptations and recruitment, and speed of force all have a role.
Imagine the physical action of a pronated pull-up (military style pull-up). In order to achieve a successful pull-up, one must:
- Be able to grip the bar with both hands facing forward and maintain a hanging position under the load of their full body weight.
- Create scapular retraction, adduction of the upper arm by way of the latissimus dorsi, flexion of the elbow – all while maintaining a firm grip and tensed rectus abdominus (six pack region) to pull straight up toward the bar.
- Reach a stopping point and maintain a eccentric contraction in order to lower back down without losing control of their body.
When described via mechanical terms, the pull-up is already significantly more complicated.
NOW: Consider what it would be like if we discussed the innervations (nerves) necessary to create the muscular contractions mentioned above.
You may be realizing that while a pull-up is JUST a pull-up, there are many conditions which must be met in order to achieve mastery of this skill.
Let’s take this idea further.
If you can identify what practice is necessary for improvement. And if specific practice can create linkages between neurons in your brain. And if your nervous system controls muscular contraction (which it does). THEN specific practice can control muscular contractions by way of your nervous system.
Which means (within a musculoskeletal/strength context at least): YOU CAN IMPROVE ANYTHING THROUGH PRACTICE.
The best part about all of this is the truth it unveils:
You are already “fit enough” for fitness.
You already hold within yourself ALL that is necessary to improve your life, your strength, your movement.
Or as William Ernest Henley put it:
“I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.”
Love you,
Madison
