House of cards - Our genius body!
The body can be a very complex creature. I talk about the 100's of muscles, joints, fascial connections, and the unlimited variations of movements on a regular basis.
I want you to picture the most amazing human bodies at the peak of their craft: dancers, gymnasts, climbers, weightlifters, wrestlers. Pretty much any variation of an artful movement for survival, sport or play.
My career is built on the curiosity of movement
I can tell you what specialists in the human body arena I really respect, but prefer to refer out to. Physiotherapists, Chiropractors, Orthopedic surgeons, Massage therapists, Fascial therapists, Counselors and Acupuncturists. I tend to have a list of local specialists that get the best results.
So what do I call myself? What do I Love?
I am a movement coach, a general practitioner of optimal movement patterns.
I am good at taking complex problems usually caused by modern day body neglect and misunderstanding, and creating programs and education with solutions to create better function.
I didn't really want to spend my time just treating injury and working with one modality in an isolated fashion. Like I said, I refer out to experts who love doing that.
Nothing excites me more than someone coming to me for advice, wanting to have a stronger more resilient body. To get people thinking, I postulate the idea of the mechanical parts of a human body to have the ability to survive for approximately 170 years.
With the caveat that the body parts must work in unison and harmony.
Our body is a team, a collective unit, the perfect army, a genius house of cards!
Perhaps life is just a game and our purpose is to have fun?
We have been gifted a body with so much scope for entertainment!
"The whole is more than the sum of it's parts"
This is an amazing statement if you think about it. Breaking us down into parts like a watch will give you only so much information and function. But together all of our mechanics come together to form what I would call an ineffable marvel.
In another blog I will discuss how the mechanical body, the organ body, the mental & emotional body all play parts in this grand game. But for now the topic is the mechanical body and how we can learn to attain some form of mastery specific to your personal needs.
Introducing the house of cards:
This is a language I created to help simplify and also give powerful visual analogies for understanding anatomy and human movement.
The Kings:
There are two kings in the body. The Hip complex is the strongest in my view, The Shoulder girdle is the second king. Depending on the movement required, the story can describe the importance of having strength in these two kings. So as an example, someone coming to me complaining of neck aches, shoulder pains or even elbow pain, I always go hunting for a weakness in the shoulder girdle king. This upper body king complex has a tonne of muscles surrounding it.
What is the king's job?. A strong protector and warrior.
Similarly someone complaining of chronic back pain, knee pain or foot problems. I always look at the Hip king. Weak hips almost always cause massive mechanical wear and tear and diminish longevity of the entire body.
The king's have powerful ball and socket joints as their center so are therefore made for a huge amount of angles and variety of movement.
I may assess your ability to hang, throw, pull-up, push up, squat, lunge, jump, ground get-up.
I look at the range of motion of all the surround tissue, and the coordination of the muscles.
The king is so important I often say to people "If you do nothing else, keep the kings strong and stable"
The Queen:
The queen is a very simplistic way to describe the entire trunk. Including all the abdominal muscles, spinal stabilisers and breathing apparatus.
The queen does not have the brute strength of the kings, but she has all the brains. A stability foundation for the entire kingdom.
A lot more nerves innervation's connecting this midsection gives more wiring for firing!
To me the queen is very important for stabilising the house and communicating to the upper king and lower king constantly to produce well coordinated movement. You may start to understand how continually isolating core exercises as many do for the wrong reasons of aesthetics over function can lead to serious mechanic flaws. I see this on a daily basis. Imbalances from poorly designed exercise programs leading to chronic imbalances and pain dysfunctions.
The Jacks:
The jack's are the hands and feet. They don't have the brute strength of the king's or the brains of the queen, but what they do have is multitude of moving parts and the ability to instigate some seriously beautiful movement.
They are the feelers on the ground, the feelers all around us. Try strapping your fingers and toes up tightly all day and see how the rest of your body functions!. Well, in some way you do. You probably have foot coffins on right now (Shitty shoes), and what are you going to do with your hands today compared to your spear throwing, tree climbing ancestors?
If your hands and feet get weak everything upstream and downstream will never function at their best.
The Ace:
The ace will be the prime moving muscles of any particular action.
The jack's may instigate, the queen stabilises, the king ramps up and turns on the ace to make movement happen.
Think of a baseball throw. The hand controls the ball and communicates to the shoulder to turn on the power thrusters. The shoulder girdle communicates to the entire core to protect the important body-parts from getting injured as well as creating a huge rotation force. The queen must tell the opposite hip to get ready for the lunge load coming. The hip gets ready while telling the feet to please land, stabilise and control the ground force. Now the ace can get simplified to a few key muscles that separate a powerful throw from a weak one. The Latissimus dorsi, Pec major and Deltoids come to mind.
So the aces cannot be effective without all the other cards.
Are you understanding the true meaning of functional training yet?
Complex, yes but it can be made more simple so everyone has access to this power once again.
The Slave:
The slave card can describe body-parts that have pain and dysfunction. I usually break them down into basic parts such as: elbows, knees, ankles, wrists, neck, lumbar joints or a specific muscular pain spot.
This is where my fun begins.
People complain about these areas because this is where the immediate pain, swelling, or discomfort shows up. If it is really bad they are referred out.
My job is when no specialist can help or is no longer needed.
I'm sorry to say most gyms cannot cope with assessing, corrective exercise and higher level coaching. This is where you must search for well trained biomechanical coaches, not personal trainers!
Unless it is an acute injury I find it rare to accurately blame the area of pain (the slave) for the genesis of the issue.
The slave is just telling you where energy is getting dumped and that you need to start paying attention to the body as a whole.
I can still strengthen the specific areas of concern.
Strengthening what I call the low cards are the small muscles that play a supportive role along with all their friends. They can stabilise, neutrilise, and they are intimately linked to posture, play a collective role in protecting joints, help absorption of shock, and act as work horses to sustain support for long periods of time. They get neglected and are usually misunderstood because you cannot see them in the mirror.
Also to get fully conditioned as work horses, they require more than the usual gym program at moderate repetition schemes. I may use long isometric hold, super high repetition (20-30or even up to 100) and force a response worthy of endurance fibre types.
Once they are up to scratch it's back to the full deck of cards. I find the quicker you can get the full team on board the better the adherence and the better the long term results.
Isolate, then integrate.
If your body feels the necessity to fulfill function with imbalances continually present, then the cavalry will back you up.
Let's call this character the JOKER!
(the joker trying to mimic the king)
A rotator cuff injury from a lack of spinal mobility and shoulder spine integration?
Chewy knotted up calf muscles from a lack of foot angles and dexterity, also hips and trunk that are still being trained on a 1985 VHS program?
Nagging groin strains from left/right body balance issues.
If you have never been assessed standing up against a plumb line and put on 2 scales, then you have never been assessed properly and will always be guessing with random programs.
Watching and recording a walking pattern, a bodyweight air squat, getting up off the floor, basic balance tests and the standard posture plumb line are easy ways to forecast potential injuries and imbalances in the house of cards.
When to Holdem or Foldem?
Holding patterns show up as protection around unstable joints.
This can relate to weakness physically which in turn spot welds a joint with tightened tissue. This also relates to emotional holding relationships. Fear and lack of trust will mirror itself in the physical body.
So if you are having trouble moving with grace and flow, stiffness, pain and chronic binding, it may be time to assess the game.
Folding patterns are also of interest in the game of life.
Joints and muscle that seems to collapse and become very unstable. An inability to create tension when needed to protect and stabilise allowing for productive movement.
Uncontrolled momentum or collapse is the bodies "TELL". In poker this is the body language of good and bad hands.
Your body never lies!
This can be caused by body weakness and also related to mental/ emotional stressors.
If I instructed you to perform a bodyweight deep squat (ass to the grass) at a 5second down, hold 2 seconds and return 5 seconds, I could watch for the speed that kills so to speak. Any inability to stabilse each degree will show up as more speed, momentum or collapse into an aberrant position.
This can be assessed in any movement pattern: Lunge, jump, pushup, pullup, walking, running etc...
We can then look to all of our soldiers for explanation:
Kings, Queen, Jacks, Aces, Jokers, Low Cards, Slaves.
Why do we get more chronic ailments today?
Untrained low cards. Too much sitting and a lack of being put off balance.
Sitting on your king for hours daily.
Fattening up the queen and not utilising her many brains with functional tasks.
Shoes that kill the jacks. A hijacking perhaps?
Aces that resemble wet noodles, from lack of use.
Allowing the joker to run the show (he loves a plot twist)
Your body will never quit on you. It will redirect it's software in order to keep you alive, even if you resemble the hunchback of Notre Dame.
Chasing pain is a favourite past time for many athletes and gym warriors.
This is why at some stage you will require your entire movement repertoire assessed and remodeled.
Try to visualise a well balanced body. Not so much a specific size or shape, but fit for life.
The variety of human bodies is astonishing. It is about finding the best function for your body type.
I see a strong upright posture, Shoulders and hip king's that look sharp and ready to move and react to any life scenario. A queen abdomen that moves with the breathe and surrounds the beautiful curves of the spine. Also having the ability to brace and be ready to fight on command. Feet and hands- jack's with wide, fully movable, with many individual looking components yet all moving together in perfect unison.
Take my house of cards and apply the symbology to your body, your movement and your training programs.
We are made to squat, lunge, push, pull, bend, twist and cross pattern daily.
Think less of training muscles, but movement patterns and zones of the body working together to produce coordinated actions.
Perhaps its time to stop bluffing and go "all in". How good would it be to feel AMAZING?
Get your house in order. As it has been said:
"If you don't look after your house, where will you to live?"
Tony Small
Health Coach
SmallWONDERS Gym
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