Direct Experience: Bridging Movement Science and Eastern Wisdom

August 27, 2025

We live in a culture obsessed with intermediaries. Coaches translate sport into drills. Teachers translate reality into curriculum. Therapists translate experience into models and diagrams. Even our own minds translate the raw present into stories, judgments, and categories.

But what happens when we bypass the translator? What happens when we experience the world directly?

This question lies at the heart of two very different traditions: the ecological approach to learning in psychology and motor skill acquisition, and the direct experience traditions of Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and other contemplative paths. Though born of different histories—one from modern cognitive science, the other from ancient spiritual practice—they converge on a radical idea: reality is directly available to us, if we can learn to stop inserting barriers.

In this post, I’ll explore the parallels between these worlds. Along the way, we’ll see how they challenge conventional views of learning, perception, and awareness—and how they might inform not just movement training, but life itself.

The Ecological Approach: Information Is Already in the World

In the mid-20th century, psychologist James J. Gibson disrupted the dominant paradigm of perception. At the time, most theories assumed that perception was an indirect process: the eyes captured a chaotic array of light, which the brain then interpreted and reconstructed into something meaningful.

Gibson rejected this view. He argued that the world is not ambiguous chaos, but already structured in meaningful ways. Perception, then, is direct. We don’t need to construct reality from scratch; instead, we pick up information already available in the environment.

This information is organized into affordances—action possibilities that the environment offers a particular organism. A chair affords sitting for a human, but not for an ant. A ledge affords jumping for a cat, but not for a turtle. Perception is not about representing a detached world inside the head, but about detecting the actionable invitations present in our immediate surroundings.

The ecological approach thus places emphasis on perception-action coupling: learning emerges not from abstract knowledge but from engaging directly with the environment in a goal-directed way.

The Direct Approach to Skill Learning: Removing the Middleman

Building on Gibson, modern motor learning theorists like Karl Newell and Rob Gray developed the direct approach (often embodied in the constraints-led approach). Instead of breaking down skills into decontextualized drills and then hoping the brain will later assemble them, the direct approach designs environments where the skill itself can emerge.

For example, rather than practicing a basketball free throw by isolating arm mechanics, the direct approach might vary task constraints (distance, ball size, fatigue) so that the learner adapts in context. The goal is not to impose an idealized movement pattern but to allow the body to explore degeneracy—multiple ways to achieve the same functional outcome.

The emphasis is on self-organization: the nervous system finds stable solutions through direct experience with the problem, not through verbal instruction or internal models.

In short, the direct approach says: learning is not in the coach’s words, nor in the player’s abstract representation—it is in the ongoing, lived relationship between person and environment.

Taoism and Buddhism: The Direct Path of Awareness

Long before Gibson, Taoist sages and Buddhist teachers asked similar questions about perception—though not of basketball or affordances, but of the nature of reality itself.

The Tao Te Ching opens with the line: “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.” Words and concepts are not the thing itself. Reality, or Tao, is immediate, self-existing, and cannot be grasped through description.

Zen Buddhism echoes this with its famous emphasis on direct pointing. A teacher may say: “Look directly at the sound of the rain. Where is the boundary between you and it?” The instruction bypasses intellectual analysis, aiming to provoke an immediate recognition of non-dual awareness.

Meditative traditions stress the same: thoughts and interpretations are after-the-fact overlays. Awareness itself is always already present, requiring no construction. Just as ecological psychology argues perception is direct, Buddhism argues that enlightenment—or awakening—is not an attainment of new content but a recognition of what has always been here.

four parallels

When we look across science, coaching, and contemplative traditions, striking echoes appear. Each begins in a different domain—psychology, skill learning, spiritual practice—but they converge on a shared intuition: reality is not something we construct secondhand. Instead, it is encountered directly, organized and sufficient on its own terms. From here, we can trace four core parallels that highlight this common ground.

Parallel 1: No Mediator Required

The first and clearest parallel is the rejection of mediation.

In cognitive psychology, perception was thought to require an internal intermediary—a brain-based reconstruction of reality. Gibson said: Perception is direct.
In traditional coaching, learning is thought to require stepwise drills and instructions. The direct approach says: Skill emerges directly from experience in context.
In religion and philosophy, truth is often mediated by scriptures, rituals, and dogma. Taoism and Zen say: Awareness is directly accessible, here and now.

In all three domains, the radical claim is that reality is already structured, already sufficient. The mediator often obscures more than it reveals.

Parallel 2: Trust in Self-Organization

A second parallel is the belief in self-organization.

In ecological psychology, the perceptual system self-organizes to detect affordances.
In motor learning, the athlete self-organizes movement solutions when exposed to rich task constraints.
In Taoism and Zen, the mind naturally rests in awareness when we stop interfering; meditation is less about striving and more about non-doing.

The teacher’s role in all three traditions is not to dictate outcomes but to craft conditions where the natural intelligence of the system reveals itself.

Parallel 3: Variability Is Not Error, but Freedom

Traditional learning models often treat variability as noise, something to be eliminated. But ecological psychology and Taoist philosophy both invert this idea.

In motor learning, variability is exploration. Trying multiple ways of moving helps find adaptable, resilient solutions.
In Taoism, the world is in constant flux—the Tao flows like water, never rigid. To live skillfully is to move with variability, not against it.
In Zen practice, thoughts and feelings come and go like clouds. Variability of mind is not an error, but part of the unfolding of awareness.

In each case, variability signals freedom—the ability to adapt to changing circumstances without clinging to one rigid solution.

Parallel 4: The Untranslatable Nature of Truth

Both scientists and sages warn us: direct experience cannot be fully transmitted through words.

Gibson said that affordances are picked up through perception, not through verbal description.
Coaches in the direct approach design practice environments, because words alone can’t teach the skill.
Zen masters famously hold up a flower or shout a single syllable instead of giving lectures—pointing beyond words.

Language, at best, is a pointer. The truth must be experienced.

A Deeper Integration: Awareness as the Ultimate Affordance

Now, let’s push further. What happens when we don’t just see these parallels as interesting coincidences, but as part of a deeper integration?

One possibility is this: awareness itself is the ultimate affordance.

Think about it. The environment offers actions to the body. But what allows us to notice affordances at all? Awareness. Without awareness, no affordance can be perceived. Awareness is the condition for direct perception.

In Taoism and Zen, awareness is not something we generate—it is the ever-present field in which all affordances arise. When we rest in awareness, life becomes less about managing representations and more about responding directly to what is.

From this perspective, ecological psychology and Buddhism are not just parallel—they are nested. The ecological approach explains how the organism engages directly with its environment. The contemplative traditions explain the deeper ground in which both organism and environment are revealed: awareness itself.

Practical Implications: From Sports to Daily Life

Why does this matter beyond theory?

For coaches and therapists: We can design learning environments that trust the intelligence of the system, minimizing unnecessary instruction and maximizing direct experience. Instead of over-explaining, we let the athlete discover.
For contemplatives and everyday people: We can approach life less as something to be mediated by constant thinking and more as something to be directly lived. Instead of analyzing every moment, we rest in the immediacy of awareness.
For bridging science and spirituality: Recognizing these parallels dissolves the false dichotomy between rigorous psychology and mystical insight. Both are studying the same phenomenon: the possibility of meeting reality directly.

Common Objections and Distinctions

Of course, we must be careful not to flatten differences.

Ecological psychology is empirical and behavioral, concerned with measurable interactions. Taoism and Zen are existential and ontological, concerned with the nature of being.
Direct motor learning is about performance optimization. Buddhism is about liberation from suffering.
Words like “direct” mean slightly different things in each tradition.

Yet, the resonance is real. The ecological approach says: “Perception is of affordances, not internal representations.” Zen says: “Awareness is of reality as it is, not of mental stories.” Both dismantle the tyranny of intermediaries and invite us back to immediacy.

Living the Direct Path

Ultimately, the lesson across domains is simple but challenging:

Stop adding layers.
Trust direct contact.
Let experience teach you.

When an athlete feels the ball instead of rehearsing cues, they are on the direct path.
When a therapist guides a patient into exploring their environment rather than memorizing postures, they are on the direct path.
When a meditator listens to the rain without commentary, they are on the direct path.

Directness does not mean simplicity or ease. It means dropping the illusion that reality needs translation before it can be lived.

Conclusion: One River, Many Streams

The Taoist sage Chuang Tzu once wrote: “The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you’ve gotten the fish, you can forget the trap.”

The ecological psychologist might say the same about models. The coach might say the same about drills. The Zen master might say the same about sutras.

In the end, all of these are traps meant to catch the fish of direct experience. Once caught, the trap can be discarded.

What remains? The river itself. Flowing, dynamic, unmediated. The direct experience of life—whether on the basketball court, in the clinic, or on the meditation cushion.

And perhaps that is the deepest lesson across science and spirituality alike: learning and awakening are not about acquiring something new, but about remembering how to meet what is already here.

Bone Density Myths: Why DEXA Scores Aren’t Everything

August 27, 2025

Let People Mess Up: Why Movement Mastery Comes from Variability, Not Perfection

August 10, 2025

In the world of physical training—whether in the weight room, on the field, or in the rehab clinic—it’s tempting to coach as if perfection is the goal. We often have an image in our head of the “right” squat, the “right” running stride, or the “right” way to throw a ball. We give cues, corrections, and feedback until what we see matches that picture. And while there’s nothing wrong with having standards, there’s a hidden danger here: if we overcoach, we rob people of the chance to explore, adapt, and actually own their movement.

Perfection is an illusion. Movement is a practice—an evolving dialogue between a person’s body and their environment. There is no single, universal “right way” to move. There are only constraints, intentions, and an infinite number of expressions that can fulfill them.

If you want to help someone truly master movement—not just mimic a shape—you have to let them mess up.

Invariants vs. Variability: The Two Pillars of Movement

In motor learning, there’s a valuable concept called invariants—the aspects of a movement or skill that should remain stable across variations. These are the “must-haves” for effectiveness and safety. Everything else can—and should—shift based on context.

For example, in a deadlift:

An invariant is keeping the load close to the body to reduce unnecessary torque on the spine and hips, and literally make the weight feel lighter.
Another is controlling the weight through the full range of motion without losing position in a way that compromises the lift’s intention.

But the rest—stance width, hip height, torso angle, grip style—can vary depending on limb length, mobility, fatigue, equipment, or even the surface you’re lifting on.

This principle can be even broader and beyond the specifics of any one movement:

In general physical conditioning, one invariant is progressive adaptation—gradually being able to tolerate more work without breaking down.
In strength training, it can be force production—your ability to produce high levels of tension to move load.
In endurance, it may be the ability to go longer—cover more distance or sustain effort over time.
And across all training, the ultimate invariant is progress—moving toward greater capacity, resilience, and adaptability over time.

When coaches confuse invariants with fixed techniques, they stifle variability, which is the very quality that makes movement robust and transferable.

Why Overcoaching Holds People Back

Overcoaching usually comes from good intentions. We want to protect clients from injury, help them succeed faster, or mold them into a technically “clean” mover. But here’s the paradox: if we never let them explore the edges of their ability, they’ll never truly own their movement.

In skill acquisition research, self-organization is critical. When learners explore movement solutions themselves, they form deeper motor patterns that are more adaptable under pressure. Constantly cueing them robs them of this process.

Think about learning to ride a bike:

If someone is holding the seat and correcting every wobble, you can “look” like you’re riding… until the hand lets go.
The real learning comes when you have to manage those wobbles yourself—maybe even fall once or twice—because that’s when your brain starts refining balance strategies.

The same applies to lifting, sprinting, throwing, or rehabbing after injury. Without some space to struggle and experiment, the skill never becomes truly resilient.

Scaling Intention, Not Enforcing a Shape

The best way to create space for exploration while still keeping things safe and productive is to design systems that scale difficulty to the client’s readiness.

A skilled coach doesn’t just say, “Do this exactly like this.” They say, “Here’s the intention. Let’s find a version that meets you where you are today.”

Examples:

If a client struggles to keep a kettlebell close to their body during a hip hinge, start them with a shorter range and lighter load before progressing to heavier weights from the floor.
If a runner is returning from injury, adjust terrain, pace, and volume to match their current tolerance, gradually introducing more challenging conditions.

The point is not to protect them from all challenge. It’s to set them up with the minimum effective constraints that allow them to explore safely. Over time, you can peel those constraints back, increasing variability and complexity.

Variability is the Path to Mastery

In movement science, variability isn’t chaos—it’s adaptability. Skilled movers have a wide “solution space” for any given intention.

Think of elite basketball players:

They can shoot a jumper from a perfect square-up position.
But they can also hit the same shot fading away, off one foot, or with a hand in their face.
The invariant is the ball’s trajectory to the hoop. The variability is the countless ways they can achieve that trajectory depending on the situation.

Research on professional athletes supports this: those who have multiple motor solutions for the same outcome perform better under variable, unpredictable conditions. Golfers with multiple swing strategies can adapt to wind and course conditions. Soccer players with more passing and shooting variations can exploit more opportunities.

The same applies to everyday athletes and rehab clients. The more ways they can achieve a desired intention—while maintaining their key invariants—the more resilient they are in real life.

The Individual and Environment Are Never Separate

One of the biggest reasons to embrace variability is that the individual and the environment are inseparable in movement.

The way you move depends on:

Your body’s current state (strength, fatigue, pain, flexibility, coordination)
The task at hand (lifting a sandbag vs. a barbell, cutting on turf vs. hardwood)
The environment (hot vs. cold, wet vs. dry, loud vs. quiet, crowded vs. empty)

You cannot control all of these variables in real life, so why train as if you can?

If you want your clients—or yourself—to be adaptable, you need to train in a way that reflects this reality. That means sometimes changing the surface, the implement, the tempo, or the level of fatigue. It means accepting that no two reps will be exactly the same.

Safety is Contextual, Not Absolute

One of the reasons coaches overcorrect is because of safety concerns. But here’s the truth: safety is not an objective state—it’s a perception filtered through experience.

What feels safe for one client may feel terrifying for another. Asking someone to lunge onto a high box might be fine for an experienced athlete but overwhelming for a post-op knee patient.

Instead of imposing your personal sense of safety, ask:

“What about this feels safe to you?”
“What feels risky?”
“What could make this feel safer while still challenging you?”

This creates a collaborative environment where safety is co-constructed, not dictated. It also helps clients take ownership of their progress, which builds both confidence and skill.

Practical Ways to Let People Mess Up

Define the Intention First
Instead of cueing a position, cue an outcome: “Get the ball to the target,” “Land quietly,” or “Keep the weight close to your body.”
Highlight the Invariants
Make sure clients know the few non-negotiables—things that should remain consistent no matter the variation.
Allow Exploration
Give them space to try different approaches. Resist the urge to jump in after every rep.
Scale Constraints, Not Options
Adjust the task difficulty so they can explore within a safe challenge zone.
Change the Environment
Vary surfaces, implements, speeds, and levels of fatigue to encourage adaptability.
Collaborate on Safety
Ask clients what feels safe or unsafe, and adjust together.

Case Study: The Squat

Let’s take a simple but often overcoached movement: the squat.

Traditional approach:

Feet exactly shoulder-width apart
Toes at a precise angle
Knees tracking exactly over toes
Chest at a fixed position

Variability-friendly approach:

Invariants: The tempo is controlled, the feet stay grounded, the hips remain lower than the shoulders, the movement feels safe.
Variability: Stance width, foot angle, torso lean, tempo, and depth can all shift depending on the day, the load, the goal, and the athlete’s comfort.

This approach acknowledges that different stances might be more stable for different anthropometrics, that fatigue might change the most efficient position, and that a change in footwear or surface might require different adjustments.

The Athlete Analogy

Think about a tennis player who can only hit a forehand from one exact position with one exact grip. They might look technically perfect in practice… but in a match, with the ball coming at different speeds and spins, they’re doomed.

Contrast that with a player who can hit a forehand:

Stepping forward
Leaning back
On the run
At shoulder height or ankle height

The second player is less “perfect” in appearance but infinitely more adaptable. That adaptability is the real marker of skill.

Why This Matters in Rehab

In rehabilitation, variability is even more critical. After an injury, the nervous system is often hypersensitive. People move differently not because they’ve “forgotten” how, but because they’re protecting against perceived threat.

If we overcorrect, we may inadvertently increase that threat perception, reinforcing avoidance patterns. Instead, if we provide multiple safe-feeling options for achieving the same task, we help the nervous system rebuild confidence and expand its solution space.

From Rigid to Resilient

Here’s the bottom line: rigid movement patterns are brittle. They work only in the narrow band of conditions they were built for. The moment the environment changes—or the body changes—they can fail.

Resilient movers have range within their skill. They know the invariants that keep them safe and effective, but they can bend everything else to fit the situation.

To build that resilience, you have to let people mess up. Give them the freedom to explore, to adapt, and yes, to fail sometimes. That’s where the learning lives.

Final Thought

If mastery is the ability to achieve a movement intention in many different ways, then perfection isn’t the goal—adaptability is. The individual and the environment are never separate, so train like they’re connected. Promote variability, co-create safety, and above all, trust the process enough to step back and let people find their own way.

A Personal Renaissance with Bodybuilding

August 9, 2025

There was a time in my life when bodybuilding was everything.

As a teenager and into my twenties, I was drawn to the iron like a moth to flame. I wanted to be bigger, stronger, and, like most young men, I measured my worth by the plates on the bench press. The goal was simple: more weight, more size. I didn’t think much about how I moved or what I was neglecting. And like many gym bros before me, I skipped leg day more times than I care to admit.

Nutrition? I never connected the dots between the gym and the kitchen. I ate whatever I wanted and never linked it to anything I was doing in the gym—or to how I felt or performed in life. I didn’t understand recovery, volume management, or the importance of movement quality. I trained like what I thought a bodybuilder would train like—but without any real education behind it. The pursuit was purely superficial—ego-driven, lazy, and misguided.

Worshipping “Function”

As I got deeper into my career as a physical therapist and strength coach, my mindset shifted significantly. I came from an athletic background—basketball in my earlier years—and as I transitioned from athlete to clinician, I began to view bodybuilding with a more cynical eye.

Then I discovered CrossFit and the broader world of so-called “functional training,” and it felt like a revelation. For the first time in years, I was moving dynamically, competing again, and feeling athletic. Olympic lifts, gymnastic movements, and timed workouts scratched the competitive itch and gave me purpose beyond aesthetics. It reconnected me with the part of myself that thrived on performance and challenge.

But in embracing this new paradigm, I swung the pendulum too far.

I started to resent bodybuilding—viewing it as outdated, vain, and even counterproductive. It represented a period of my life I had outgrown, or so I thought. “Functional training” became my religion, and hypertrophy work was sacrilegious.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my disdain for bodybuilding was never about the training itself. It was about what it represented in my life. I associated it with immaturity, insecurity, and a lack of knowledge. What I didn’t see was the sophistication and versatility it actually offers when approached with intention.

An Expanded Perspective

In my forties, as I started taking on more athletic pursuits—more CrossFit, more pickup basketball, more BJJ—my body started sending a clear message. Slowly at first. A few warning signs here and there. But eventually I realized what was happening: I wasn’t recovering the way I used to. I was feeling more beat up than built up. There was always some nagging joint irritation or soft tissue flare-up. The accumulation of load without balance was catching up to me.

That’s when bodybuilding reentered the frame—not as a replacement, but as a rediscovery.

What I once dismissed as vanity now revealed itself as utility.
What I once viewed as shallow began to show real depth.
What I once cast aside has become essential—not because it does everything, but because it fills in what other methods often leave out.

The Versatility of Bodybuilding

Of all the benefits bodybuilding brings to the table, perhaps the most valuable is its versatility.

You can go heavy or light, push hard or dial it back. As long as you’re applying appropriate intensity to the target tissue, there’s value.

For a body in midlife—still active but less forgiving—this flexibility is gold.

Key variables that can be manipulated within bodybuilding include:

Intensity variations

You can stimulate the same muscle using high-load, low-rep work (e.g. 5×5 squats) or low-load, high-rep protocols (e.g. 3×20 leg extensions). Both can drive growth if intensity is sufficient.

Exercise Selection

There are countless ways to stimulate a muscle—none inherently better, just different tools for different contexts. You don’t need the perfect movement—you need an entry point that lets you challenge the muscle safely and effectively.

Tempo & Range of Motion

Bodybuilding emphasizes variations in tempo and range of motion—slowing down a rep, pausing at the bottom, or extending the eccentric phase. These subtle changes shift the demand on the muscle, improve control, and expose weak links. It’s a powerful way to reconnect with areas that have lost coordination, stability, or proprioception. By manipulating how and where tension is applied, you’re not just training muscles—you’re refining movement.

Strengthening Through Stretch: Hypertrophy & Tendon Resilience

Among all the ways bodybuilding demonstrates its versatility, one of the most impactful is its ability to strengthen muscles in lengthened positions. A growing body of peer-reviewed research suggests that training at longer muscle lengths may offer unique hypertrophic benefits compared to training at shorter lengths—even when the overall range of motion is similar.

Recent systematic reviews and experimental studies have consistently shown that exercises emphasizing a stretched muscle position can lead to greater gains in muscle size. This effect has been observed across various muscle groups, including the quadriceps, hamstrings, triceps, and calves, highlighting a potential advantage of incorporating movements that challenge muscles in these lengthened positions.

Why might this work?

Training at long muscle lengths appears to increase passive tension within the muscle, which may enhance activation of the mTORC1 pathway—a key signaling route associated with muscle protein synthesis and hypertrophic adaptation.

Why is this important?

The benefits go beyond size. Slowly and deliberately loading a muscle into a stretch—then contracting out of that position—builds resilience at joint angles that are often the most susceptible to strain or injury. Over time, this strategy improves mobility, reinforces control in weak positions, and builds strength where most people are least prepared.

It’s an efficient approach that checks multiple boxes at once: more hypertrophy, more usable range, and greater control in the positions that matter most.

Filling the Gaps

In my clinical experience, staying engaged in familiar athletic pursuits is vital for preserving confidence, identity, and capability with age. But over time, their repetitive demands can create blind spots—neglected areas, overused patterns, or imbalances that limit resilience and long-term progress. Bodybuilding helps fill those gaps by providing controlled, targeted loading that promotes movement variability, joint control, and tissue-specific resilience.

In this way, it hasn’t competed with the activities I love—it’s complemented them. Bodybuilding has given me the tools to sustain those pursuits by shoring up weak points, reinforcing undertrained areas, and supporting recovery without losing momentum. It isn’t a step back—it’s the structure that has allowed me to move forward with more confidence and greater consistency.

The Clinical Lens

Over the past 20 years as a physical therapist, my perspective on fitness has evolved dramatically. Early in my career, I viewed bodybuilding-style training as overly rigid, even harmful—focused too much on aesthetics at the expense of function, and potentially contributing to dysfunctional movement patterns or overuse injuries. But over time that view shifted. I’ve come to recognize bodybuilding as one of the most scalable and adaptable tools in the rehab and performance continuum. When applied with intention, it offers precise, targeted loading that can restore joint control, build tissue resilience, and reinforce movement competency in ways that many other training styles can’t.

Here’s why:

Muscle Building: Sarcopenia is real. Building and maintaining lean tissue is non-negotiable for healthy aging.
Injury Workarounds: You can always find a variation that works. Hypertrophy training is incredibly modifiable—angles, tempos, ranges of motion can all be adjusted.
Body Control & Proprioception: As muscle size and force production increase, contractions become easier to feel and control, enhancing your ability to sense and coordinate movement with greater precision.
Education on Relative Intensity: One of the main principles of hypertrophy training is helping people safely understand what “hard” actually feels like. It’s much easier—and more effective—to approach true muscular failure in a controlled, targeted setting where the focus stays on the working muscle.
Progression Frameworks: Whether it’s reps, load, tempo, or rest intervals, bodybuilding provides a structured, measurable path forward.
Inclusivity of Movements: Unlike more dogmatic systems, bodybuilding allows for value in both complex and simple movements. A well-executed bicep curl can be just as therapeutic as a Turkish get-up, depending on the context.

"And" Not "Or"

In my opinion, one of the reasons bodybuilding is often misunderstood is the tendency to view it in isolation rather than as part of a larger, integrated fitness process. It’s easy to dismiss hypertrophy training when it lacks balance or context—but that’s not a flaw of the method itself, rather a limitation in how it’s applied. Adopting an “and” not “or” mindset allows bodybuilding to complement other training styles, enhancing both performance and longevity.

This isn’t unique to bodybuilding—it applies to any training method.

CrossFit, yoga, Olympic lifting, Pilates—none of them are inherently good or bad. They each offer something unique. But they’re incomplete on their own.

If your only exposure to bodybuilding is chest day, arm day, ego lifting, and mirror selfies, of course it’s going to feel empty. But when you understand its full utility—when you respect the stimulus and the structure—it becomes a powerful tool in a well-rounded practice.

Training and Nutrition: Better Together

Bodybuilding doesn’t just complement nutrition—it demands it.

The relationship between training and nutrition in this context is like peanut butter and jelly, or peas and carrots—they just make more sense together. When you're following a program designed to build your body, it naturally reinforces the behavioral consistency needed to eat with structure and intention.

Personally, I use both the Renaissance Periodization (RP) Hypertrophy and Diet Apps to guide my training and nutrition. The structure of the workouts aligns seamlessly with targeted dietary strategies—creating a feedback loop that supports muscle growth, recovery, and long-term sustainability.

Each rep in the gym creates a stronger reason to hit your protein target, stay hydrated, and prioritize recovery. Likewise, each well-planned meal reinforces your efforts under the bar.

This synergy creates momentum. You're not just working out—you’re building something. And that sense of direction makes it easier to make aligned choices, both in and out of the gym.

Body recomposition requires more than just effort—it requires alignment. And nothing aligns physical change and daily discipline quite like the pairing of hypertrophy training and nutrition done with purpose.

No Graduation—Only Evolution

I used to see myself as someone who had “graduated” from bodybuilding into higher-order movement. But that hierarchy was a myth. There’s no graduation—only evolution.

Now, I see bodybuilding not as a phase to outgrow but as a meaningful component of a more evolved training philosophy.

It’s allowed me to move away from the binary thinking that kept me rigid. Instead of “training like an athlete” or “training like a bodybuilder,” I now ask: What does my body need today? What’s going to move me forward?

Sometimes it’s intensity.

Sometimes it’s isolation.

Often, it’s both.

Closing Thoughts

My return to bodybuilding isn’t about leaving past training philosophies behind—it’s about expanding them. Each phase of my athletic journey has added depth to how I view movement, and bodybuilding has become a key part of that expansion. No longer just a pursuit of size or aesthetics, it now serves a more strategic role: supporting joint integrity, enhancing recovery, and offering a focused way to build resilience where it’s needed most.

Bodybuilding doesn’t check every box—but it’s a powerful tool. One that’s often misunderstood in many training circles. It often gets framed as “not functional,” but at this point, that word has become so vague it’s lost much of its meaning. A better question is: Is it useful? And when applied with intention, it is undeniably useful—for rehab, for performance, and for aging well with strength and confidence.

References:

Maeo, S., Sakurai, H., Kusagawa, Y., Wu, Y., Huang, M., Sugiyama, T., Kanehisa, H., & Isaka, T. (2022). Triceps brachii hypertrophy is substantially greater after elbow extension training performed in the overhead versus neutral arm position. → European Journal of Sport Science. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2022.2100279
Pedrosa, G. F., Simões, M. G., Figueiredo, M. O. C. F., Lacerda, L. T., Schoenfeld, B. J., Lima, F. V., Chagas, M. H., & Diniz, R. C. R. (2023). Training in the initial range of motion promotes greater muscle adaptations than at final in the arm curl. Sports (Basel), 11(2), 39. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports11020039
Pedrosa, G. F., Simões, M. G., Figueiredo, M. O. C., Lacerda, L. T., Schoenfeld, B. J., Lima, F. V., Chagas, M. H., & Diniz, R. C. R. (2021). Partial range of motion training elicits favorable improvements in muscular adaptations when carried out at long muscle lengths. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 121(7), 1787–1799. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33977835/

The Judgment Cycle: How Blame, Guilt, and Shame Keep Us From Changing—and How to Break Free

July 18, 2025

If you’ve ever tried to make a meaningful change in your health, habits, or mindset, chances are you’ve met the resistance of judgment. It might not look like judgment at first. It might feel like frustration, self-doubt, cynicism, or guilt. But look a little closer, and you’ll find judgment embedded in the way we talk to ourselves, perceive others, and even interpret the world around us.

Judgment is sneaky like that. It disguises itself as insight. It dresses up like motivation. But more often than not, it becomes the very thing that holds us back.

Let’s unpack the cycle of judgment—a loop that traps us in the very behaviors we’re trying to change—and explore how recognizing this cycle is the key to real, lasting transformation.

It Starts with Judgment of Others

When we feel stuck or out of alignment with the version of ourselves we want to be, one of the easiest things to do is point the finger outward.

We judge the people who are doing the things we’re not doing.

The early riser becomes “obsessive.”
The meal prepper becomes “neurotic.”
The person who won’t drink on a Friday night is “no fun.”
The one training hard into their 60s is “overcompensating.”

This is projection, plain and simple. It’s easier to see discipline as extreme when we’re struggling to find any of it. It’s easier to dismiss consistency as rigid when we’re stuck in a pattern of inconsistency.

Judging others for doing what we say we want to do is the first signal that we’re disconnected from our own capacity for change.

Then Comes Self-Judgment

The second part of the cycle is more subtle—and more painful.

After we judge others for being “too much,” we turn that same harsh gaze inward. We criticize ourselves for not being enough.

We start asking:

“Why can’t I just stick with it?”
“Why do I always fall off?”
“Why am I not that kind of person?”

This judgment masquerades as tough love. But it’s really just self-sabotage. It keeps us fixated on identity—who we think we are or aren’t—rather than behavior—what we actually do or don’t do.

Instead of changing, we ruminate.

Next Comes Judgment of the System

Now that we’ve judged both others and ourselves, it’s only natural to judge the system.

And to be fair, the system deserves scrutiny.

The healthcare system is reactive, not proactive. Most medical advice is fragmented. Insurance often discourages holistic care. Big food, big pharma, and corporate wellness are all profit-driven.

But here's the catch: when we only view the system through a lens of cynicism and helplessness, we fall into external blame. And blame—whether valid or not—further strips us of agency.

We tell ourselves:

“Of course I can’t get better—look at this broken system.”
“Of course I’m confused—there’s so much conflicting information.”
“Of course I’m stuck—it’s not my fault.”

Blame, even when earned, becomes an anchor. It may feel justified, but it doesn’t help us move forward.

Guilt, Shame, and Avoidance Lock Us In

Eventually, this spiral leads to guilt and shame.

Guilt for not doing what we said we would.
Shame for feeling like we should be different by now.
Avoidance because facing it all feels overwhelming.

And here we are—back where we started. Tired. Frustrated. Watching others do what we wish we could do. Judging them. Judging ourselves. Criticizing the whole system. Feeling stuck.

And change? Still out of reach.

The Hidden Cost of the Judgment Cycle

Here’s the cruel irony: the more we judge, the less we change.

Judgment keeps us thinking about change without ever taking the actions required to change. It feels like analysis, but it’s actually paralysis.

And maybe even more damaging—judgment keeps us disconnected from curiosity, which is the foundation of all sustainable transformation.

Breaking the Cycle: Seeing Clearly, Acting Consistently

The way out begins with awareness. You can’t change what you can’t see.

Start by noticing your judgments—not to judge them (that would just be another loop)—but to gently shine a light on them.

When you feel resistant to someone’s habits, pause and ask: Is this actually about them—or something I want for myself but haven’t figured out how to do yet?
When you find yourself stuck in self-criticism, ask: What would I do differently right now if I truly believed I could change?
When you catch yourself blaming the system, ask: What’s still within my control today—even if the system is flawed?

From this place of awareness, something powerful can emerge: acceptance.

Acceptance that:

You want to change.
You’re allowed to want to change.
You’re capable of change.

This might sound simple. But it’s revolutionary.

Many people never fully accept that they can change because they're too busy defending who they currently are. But you can accept yourself and still want to grow. In fact, that’s the sweet spot.

The First Step: Consistency Over Perfection

Change doesn’t come from waiting until everything is perfect. It comes from doing one consistent thing differently—even while the world stays messy.

Forget identity for a moment. Don’t worry if you’re “the kind of person” who tracks meals, trains regularly, or wakes up early.

Instead, ask: What is one action I can take today that moves me closer to where I want to go?

And then… do it again tomorrow.

Consistency doesn’t require confidence. It just requires action.

Final Thought: Judging Less, Doing More

The cycle of judgment is deeply human. It’s how we try to make sense of a world full of contradiction, confusion, and unmet expectations.

But it’s also how we stay stuck.

When we let go of judgment, we gain access to clarity. When we quiet blame, guilt, and shame, we can hear what our body and mind actually need.

And from there—real change becomes possible.

You’re not lazy. You’re not broken. You’re not too late.

You’re just human.

And once you see the cycle, you no longer have to stay in it.

In Defense of the Burpee: From Prone to Powerful with Purpose

July 16, 2025

Few exercises inspire such passionate opinions—both love and hate—as the burpee. For some, it's a badge of honor, a gritty test of toughness and grit. For others, it's a lazy catch-all programmed by coaches lacking creativity. Few movements have been so widely implemented across fitness landscapes—CrossFit, bootcamps, military training—yet so widely vilified, particularly in elite performance and rehab circles.

One of the most well-known critics is strength coach Mike Boyle, who has called burpees "the most dangerous exercise in the gym" and claimed, “the only reason people use burpees is because they ran out of ideas.” For Boyle, the burpee represents unnecessary spinal flexion, poor movement quality, and mindless fatigue. His criticisms are not without merit—when programmed poorly, the burpee can be an absolute mess.

But that’s the point: like any exercise, the burpee is only as good—or as bad—as its execution and intent. Demonizing the burpee wholesale ignores its foundational value as a skill we should all aspire to maintain—the ability to get from the ground to standing with power, rhythm, and flow.

What Is a Burpee, Really?

Strip away the reps, the speed, the no-pain-no-gain narrative, and what is a burpee? It’s a transition. A journey from the ground (prone) to a vertical stance, potentially with a jump or hop to complete the motion.

In other words, the burpee is a full-body locomotor skill. It’s not just about fitness—it’s about function.

In real life, the ability to move from the floor to standing is a foundational marker of independence. In sports, this sequence is critical: think about a downed athlete getting back into play, or a BJJ practitioner scrambling from bottom to top position. In aging populations, the ability to get off the ground without assistance strongly predicts fall resilience and long-term independence.

So yes, elite athletes might “graduate” from burpees to more specialized movements. And yes, not everyone needs to do high-volume burpees for conditioning. But if you remove ego, what’s left is a movement we should all respect—and protect.

The Problem Isn’t the Burpee. It’s the Programming.

When Boyle and others critique the burpee, their real target is often how it's programmed:

Done in high volumes with sloppy form? Dangerous.
Used as a punishment? Counterproductive.
Thrown into every circuit with no progressions? Lazy coaching.

But none of that is the burpee’s fault.

Poorly programmed squats, deadlifts, or Olympic lifts can also be dangerous and useless. That doesn’t mean we ban the movements—it means we program them better.

The burpee is no different. It’s a movement that demands coaching, scaling, and intention.

The Safe, Progressive Burpee

One of the best things about burpees is how scalable they are. You don’t need to throw your chest to the ground and explode up right away. Here’s how you can progress the movement for almost any body:

1. Elevated Burpee

Instead of going to the floor, use a bench or box. Step back and forward, keeping the spine long and the movement clean. No jump needed.

2. Step-Through vs. Jump-Through

Many people lack the hip mobility or core control to snap their legs forward underneath them. Let them step through first. Jumping can come later.

3. Slow on the Way Down, Fast on the Way Up

Teach control. Moving slowly into the plank or prone position builds awareness and strength. The upward phase can eventually become explosive—but only once the foundation is laid.

4. Power vs. Flow

Burpees can be used to build power—think fast, crisp transitions, a powerful jump, and a sharp landing. Or they can be a rhythmic flow, focusing on breath, coordination, and grace. Both versions are useful, depending on the training goal.

In this way, the burpee becomes a movement practice, not just a conditioning tool. When progressed properly, it’s no more dangerous than a get-up, a squat, or a push-up.

The Ability to Rise Isn’t Universal

One of the reasons burpees get a bad rap is that many of the people programming or critiquing them take for granted the ability to transition off the ground. But not everyone has that luxury.

For someone recovering from injury, building back from illness, or aging with grace, the ability to get down and back up—repeatedly and confidently—can be transformative.

It’s easy to criticize burpees when you’ve been pain-free for decades. But ask someone who has struggled to get off the floor after a fall, or who has felt trapped in their body due to immobility, and you’ll hear something different: getting up is a gift.

By integrating functional floor-to-stand transitions in your training—whether through Turkish get-ups, crawls, or burpees—you’re investing in your capacity to move through the world autonomously.

Burpees might look like punishment to some. But to others, they represent freedom.

When Burpees Belong (and When They Don’t)

Burpees aren't for everyone, and they aren't for every program. Here’s when they can work:

✅ General conditioning for recreational athletes and general population clients
✅ GPP (General Physical Preparedness) phases for athletes
✅ Bodyweight circuits for home workouts or travel
✅ Warm-ups or movement prep, when done with control
✅ Resilience training—building the ability to recover from the ground quickly

But here’s when they don’t make sense:

❌ As punishment
❌ In high-volume circuits for beginners with poor movement capacity
❌ For clients with acute shoulder, wrist, or spinal issues (without proper modifications)
❌ As the default "intensity booster" in lazy program design

Burpees are a tool. A powerful one. But not the only one.

Final Thoughts: Honor the Movement

The burpee may not be trendy, sexy, or biomechanically pristine—but it represents something fundamental. It’s a microcosm of athleticism: core control, mobility, coordination, timing, and intent. It can be a sprint or a dance. It can build work capacity or body awareness.

The fitness world doesn’t need to love burpees. But it should respect them.

Instead of asking whether burpees are “good” or “bad,” ask better questions:

Is this person ready for the movement?
What is the desired outcome?
How can I scale this to build skill and confidence?

If you can go from the floor to standing with ease, speed, and control, you’ve built something worth keeping. And if you’ve ever lost that ability, you know just how precious it is.

Burpees aren’t just a workout. They’re a celebration of your ability to rise.

The Comfort Paradox: Why Discomfort Today Builds Comfort Tomorrow

July 12, 2025

We live in a world that prizes comfort. From ergonomic chairs to food delivery apps, temperature-controlled environments to on-demand entertainment, modern life is engineered to minimize friction. And while this can be convenient, it also sets a subtle trap—one where we begin to equate comfort with well-being and avoidance of discomfort with wisdom.

But here’s the paradox: the more we pursue comfort in the moment, the more uncomfortable our lives can become in the long term. And inversely, the more we’re willing to lean into discomfort intentionally, the more comfort and freedom we create for ourselves over time. This is the Comfort Paradox.

Introducing the Comfort Continuum

To make sense of this, let’s look at what I call the Comfort Continuum.

On one end of the spectrum is Comfort in the Moment—the impulse to feel good now, to avoid pain, to stay in familiar territory, and to minimize effort.

On the other end is Comfort Through Capacity—the ability to feel at ease because you’ve built the strength, skill, resilience, or understanding to handle what life throws at you.

These two types of comfort are not the same. In fact, they often compete with each other.

Comfort in the moment is visible, immediate, and gratifying.
Comfort through capacity is invisible, delayed, and often earned through discomfort.

The key insight? You can’t build comfort through capacity without experiencing discomfort.

The Cost of Chasing Comfort in the Moment

Choosing momentary comfort might feel smart in the short term: resting when you’re tired, avoiding confrontation, skipping the hard workout, taking the escalator instead of the stairs. None of these are inherently bad choices. But over time, when avoiding discomfort becomes a habit, your world begins to shrink.

Pain gets worse. Movement becomes harder. Confidence erodes.

Eventually, the most basic tasks—getting up off the floor, climbing stairs, carrying groceries—start to feel like major obstacles. That’s because comfort in the moment doesn’t build anything. It’s a withdrawal, not a deposit. And when life inevitably demands something of you—be it physical, emotional, or mental—you discover that you haven’t built the capacity to meet it.

That’s the moment when the lack of capacity becomes visible.

You might not notice strength or resilience when someone has it. But you always notice when they don’t.

What Is Comfort Through Capacity?

Comfort through capacity is subtle and slow-building. It’s earned through consistent, often invisible effort.

It’s not about being constantly uncomfortable or grinding yourself into the ground. Rather, it’s about choosing challenges that stretch you—physically, mentally, emotionally—just beyond what’s easy.

It’s pushing through the last reps of a workout.
It’s learning a new skill and enduring the awkwardness of being a beginner.
It’s having the hard conversation instead of staying quiet.
It’s waking up early for a walk instead of sleeping in every day.

Each of these moments, while uncomfortable, deposits something into your long-term capacity bank. Over time, this builds a body that moves well, a mind that doesn’t panic under pressure, and a life that feels more capable.

This is comfort in its truest sense—not freedom from discomfort, but freedom within it.

The Illusion of Effortless Ease

One of the biggest lies modern culture sells us is that ease should come effortlessly. But that’s not how nature works. Trees grow stronger through wind and pressure. Muscles only develop through resistance. Immune systems are forged through exposure.

Humans are no different. Our capacity for comfort is directly proportional to our willingness to be uncomfortable by choice.

Want to be able to run without pain? You have to train.
Want to lift your kids without tweaking your back? You need strength.
Want to focus deeply on work? You need to practice delaying gratification.
Want to age with grace and capability? You need to move—often and with intention.

Ease is a product of effort, not the absence of it.

Discomfort as a Signal, Not a Stop Sign

Discomfort isn’t something to fear. It’s information. It tells you where you’re growing, what you’re avoiding, and where the edges of your current capacity lie.

The trick is distinguishing between productive discomfort and destructive pain. Not all discomfort is worth pursuing—but far more of it is useful than we’re conditioned to believe.

In a training context, discomfort is where adaptation happens. The muscle burns a little, the breath gets heavy, coordination is challenged—and the body says, “Ah, we need to get better at this.”

Avoid that signal often enough, and the body assumes it doesn’t need to be ready for much.

Capacity Is Invisible—Until It Isn’t

Capacity doesn’t show up on a scale or in a mirror. It doesn’t come with instant gratification. But it makes everything easier—getting out of a chair, chasing your kids, walking all day in a new city, returning to work after injury.

Capacity often goes unnoticed—until you lose it.

This is why so many people don’t train for capacity until a crisis forces them to. Pain, injury, illness, or limitation jolts them into action. But by then, you’re playing catch-up.

What if, instead, we lived with the awareness that capacity is always being built—or lost?

What if we treated discomfort not as something to avoid but as a tool to increase the range of what we can do with ease?

Building Comfort Through Capacity: A Simple Framework

Here are a few ways to live more toward the “capacity” end of the continuum:

Choose friction on purpose: Take the stairs, carry your groceries, walk instead of drive. These small decisions compound.
Train what you want to keep: Strength, mobility, endurance, coordination—all of it decays without use. Use it or lose it.
Seek unfamiliarity: Try something new. The act of learning keeps your nervous system agile and your confidence sharp.
Practice patience: Capacity builds slowly. Set goals based on what you want to be able to do, not how you want to look or feel this week.
Reflect on your defaults: When you’re uncomfortable, what’s your instinct—avoid or adapt? That answer tells you where your edge is.

The Bottom Line

Comfort is not the enemy. But mistaking immediate ease for lasting peace is a trap. True comfort isn’t found by avoiding stressors—it’s built by gradually increasing your ability to handle them.

That’s the Comfort Paradox: the more you're willing to endure strategic discomfort now, the more you create a life where discomfort doesn’t control you later.

So choose your discomfort wisely. It’s not punishment—it’s preparation.

Proprioception and Pain: Reclaiming Control Through Body Awareness

June 30, 2025

Last week, we talked about how proprioception fuels strength—and how strength training sharpens proprioception. This week, we’re taking that same concept and applying it to pain. Because just as proprioception enhances your ability to lift and move with control, it also transforms how you experience and respond to pain.

Pain is one of the most misunderstood signals in the human body. It's often treated as something to silence or suppress, rather than a message to be interpreted. But when we shift our perspective, pain can become a powerful tool for motor learning and self-awareness. And at the heart of this shift is proprioception.

Proprioception—your ability to sense your body's position, movement, and force—is deeply connected to how we experience and respond to pain. The better your proprioception, the more informed your movement choices become, and the less threatening pain tends to feel. When proprioception is strong, pain becomes less about danger and more about feedback. Let’s explore how.

Pain as Information, Not Just Alarm

Pain is a complex output of the nervous system. It doesn’t always mean damage. Often, it means the brain perceives a threat, whether real or potential. Poor movement control, sudden load changes, or unfamiliar positions can all provoke a pain response, even when no tissue is injured.

This is where proprioception becomes critical. When your brain receives clear, detailed input about where your body is and how it's moving, it feels safer. And when the brain feels safe, it dials down the volume on pain. In contrast, vague or inconsistent movement signals (common after injury or during deconditioning) often lead the brain to err on the side of caution, which means amplifying pain.

In short, blurry body awareness leads to more perceived threat. Clear body awareness reduces it.

The Proprioceptive Buffer Against Pain

Imagine walking barefoot across a rocky surface. If your balance is shaky, your coordination off, or your joints unsteady, the sharpness of each step might feel overwhelming. But if you’ve developed strong proprioception through consistent training, you can make subtle adjustments to your foot placement, joint angles, and muscle tension to reduce the impact of each step.

This is how proprioception acts as a buffer. It doesn’t eliminate the rocks, but it gives your body options for how to respond to them. When movement options increase, the threat decreases. That means the same stimulus may be perceived with far less pain.

Strength Training as Proprioceptive Practice

Pain often emerges when movement feels unfamiliar or unsafe. But as we discussed last week, strength training isn't just about muscle. It is a proprioceptive training ground. Each rep is a chance to refine how you sense tension, alignment, and force. It improves force production, which amplifies the feedback sent through proprioceptive channels.

Getting stronger through more complex and varied patterns teaches the nervous system that more movement situations are safe and controllable. Training strength through greater ranges of motion also fosters stability in positions that might otherwise feel threatening or even injurious. The result? More confidence in more contexts—and that confidence is one of the best antidotes to pain.

When Pain Persists, Proprioception Guides

One of the most frustrating aspects of persistent pain is the feeling of being out of control. People describe their bodies as unpredictable or unreliable. They stop trusting movement. That withdrawal often leads to less activity, more deconditioning, and further reduction in proprioceptive input.

Rebuilding that trust means gradually reintroducing movement with an emphasis on awareness. Even basic movements—walking, shifting weight, reaching overhead—become opportunities to sharpen body awareness. As proprioception improves, the nervous system becomes less reactive, and pain intensity often begins to drop.

Importantly, the goal is not to eliminate pain entirely. It’s to move with clarity and intention, using pain as a signal to adapt, not avoid.

Case Example: The Knee That Hurts Going Down Stairs

Consider someone who feels knee pain every time she goes downstairs. Instead of avoiding the stairs, what if she used each descent as a diagnostic tool? Maybe the knee is tracking inward, the foot collapses, or the hip doesn't stabilize.

With improved proprioception, she can start to notice these subtleties. She might engage the hips and core more, distribute pressure across the foot, or control the speed of descent better. These micro-adjustments don’t require a complete overhaul—just awareness and intention.

The result? The same task (going downstairs) feels less threatening. Pain decreases, not because the knee is suddenly fixed, but because the body is moving with more clarity and less fear.

Pain + Proprioception = Strategy, Not Shutdown

Pain doesn't mean stop. It means change. And proprioception provides the data we need to decide how to change. This could mean adjusting load, modifying range of motion, or simply shifting attention to a neglected part of the movement.

Instead of treating pain as an enemy, we treat it like a coach. And proprioception is how we listen.

This mindset shift transforms rehab, training, and even everyday life. It gives people a sense of agency: "I can feel what's happening. I can respond. I have options."

Final Thoughts: Building Resilience Through Awareness

Proprioception is not just a performance enhancer. It’s a pain modulator. It helps us navigate the space between sensitivity and strength. It teaches us that pain, while uncomfortable, doesn’t have to be paralyzing.

Through thoughtful movement, consistent training, and a curious mindset, proprioception can be cultivated. And when it is, pain becomes less of a warning siren and more of a tuning fork—guiding us toward more effective, confident movement.

So the next time pain shows up, pause. Don’t just push through or shut down. Instead, tune in. Feel your body. Adjust. Explore. That’s the proprioceptive path to resilience.

Proprioception: The Link Between Strength and Movement Mastery

June 20, 2025

When people talk about balance, coordination, or body control, they’re usually referring to a system most have never heard of: proprioception.

Proprioception is your body’s ability to sense itself. It’s how you know where your arm is even if your eyes are closed, or how you can scratch your back without needing a mirror. It plays a critical role in movement, injury prevention, and performance—and it’s deeply intertwined with strength.

In fact, proprioception and strength are not just related; they exist in a feedback loop. The stronger you are, the more force you can produce. Greater force production enhances your ability to feel and control your muscles, improving proprioception. And better proprioception gives you the body awareness to train with greater precision, control, and efficiency, making it easier to get stronger. Let’s unpack how this works.

What Is Proprioception?

Proprioception is often referred to as the "sixth sense," a complex network of sensors in your body that send real-time information to your brain about limb position, joint angle, tension, and movement. This information allows you to move smoothly and adjust instantly to changes in your environment.

It comes from several sources:

Muscle spindles: These are stretch receptors embedded in muscles that detect changes in muscle length and speed of movement.
Golgi tendon organs: Located at the junction of muscles and tendons, these sense tension and help regulate force output.
Joint receptors: These provide feedback on joint angles and position, especially near the end ranges of motion.
Skin and fascia mechanoreceptors: These respond to stretch, pressure, and vibration, adding even more layers to your body map.

Your brain takes all this information and integrates it with your visual and vestibular systems (balance organs in your inner ear) to produce a clear map of where you are in space and how you’re moving through it. These sensory signals travel through the spinal cord, primarily via the dorsal column, a major pathway responsible for carrying proprioceptive and tactile information to the brain for interpretation.

Strength, Force, and Muscle Awareness

Strength is the ability to produce force against resistance. When you train to get stronger, you are not only improving your muscles' capacity to produce that force, but you are also enhancing your nervous system’s ability to recruit and coordinate those muscles efficiently.

That neuromuscular efficiency—the ability to call upon the right muscles at the right time with the right amount of force—is closely tied to proprioception. Here's why:

Greater force leads to greater feedback.
- When you lift heavier weights or perform explosive movements, your body generates more sensory information. This "data" floods your proprioceptive system, reinforcing the connection between the brain and the body.
Improved proprioception enhances motor learning.
- As your awareness of movement improves, you make better micro-adjustments. You start to notice how your feet press into the floor during a squat or how your lats engage during a pull-up. This fine-tuning accelerates strength gains.
Muscle contraction becomes more vivid.
- With strength training, your proprioceptive system learns to detect subtle changes in muscle tone, tension, and joint alignment. This is what people describe as a “mind-muscle connection.”

In short, stronger muscles send stronger signals, and a more sensitive proprioceptive system knows how to interpret and refine those signals. It’s a bidirectional upgrade: strength feeds proprioception, and proprioception makes strength training more productive.

Why This Matters in Practice

Most people think they need to work on balance or coordination by doing wobbly exercises on unstable surfaces. But the truth is, well-designed strength training improves proprioception more effectively.

Think of a deadlift. You need to feel the pressure in your feet, the tension in your hamstrings, the engagement of your core and lats. Each rep, if done with intention, sharpens proprioception.
Consider unilateral training. Rear foot elevated split squats or single-arm presses challenge your body to maintain alignment and stability under load. This demands constant proprioceptive feedback.
Look at gymnastics or calisthenics. These are pure expressions of strength and proprioception combined—you can’t muscle through a handstand without a high degree of body awareness.

Even in rehab, proprioceptive deficits are often what linger after an injury. That’s why reintroducing strength gradually in a controlled manner is essential for restoring movement control and confidence.

Train Strength to Train Awareness

The takeaway is this: building strength is not just about muscle size or aesthetics. It’s about teaching your body to produce force with precision. That precision demands awareness—and that awareness is proprioception.

When a beginner starts lifting, they often struggle not because they’re weak, but because they haven’t yet developed the internal sense of how to move their body under load. As they train, reps become smoother. They start to feel where their body is in space. That’s proprioception catching up to strength.

Meanwhile, experienced lifters often describe being able to "feel" when their technique is slightly off or when a muscle isn’t firing correctly. That heightened sensitivity allows them to make micro-adjustments in real time and continue making progress.

Closing Thoughts

Proprioception is what gives your body intelligence. It turns brute force into refined movement. It’s what allows you to express strength with grace and adaptability. And like strength, it can be trained.

You don’t need a BOSU ball or balance disc to do it. You just need a barbell, a kettlebell, or your own bodyweight—and the intention to feel your way through the work. Train with awareness, and both your strength and your movement will rise together.

Proprioception isn’t just a concept for rehab or sports performance. It’s a foundational element of living well. From navigating stairs to reacting quickly when you trip, your ability to feel your body is what keeps you moving through life with capability and confidence.

So the next time you train, don’t just count the reps. Feel the tension. Feel your weight shift. Feel the force. That’s proprioception—and it might be your most underrated strength skill.

Physical Intelligence: The Wisdom of Movement

June 9, 2025

There comes a point in adulthood when taking care of yourself is no longer a luxury or a side project—it’s a responsibility. Not just to you, but to the people who count on you. Physical capability as we age isn’t just about staying “fit.” It’s a reflection of values: how much you respect yourself, how seriously you take your role in others’ lives, and how willing you are to invest in capacity that supports all other forms of intelligence.

To move well as you age—and to look the part—is not a lucky break or the result of hiring the right trainer. It’s the product of lived experience, deliberate practice, and long-term commitment. In a world that outsources, shortcuts, and compartmentalizes health, showing up physically capable is a quiet signal of something deeper: intellectual maturity.

Because the reality is this—taking care of yourself isn’t simple, and it isn’t something you can pawn off to “the help.” Delegating your health is not the same as owning it. When someone in their 40s, 50s, or 60s moves with power and ease, or carries a posture that radiates energy, what you’re seeing is not vanity—it’s investment. It’s earned physical intelligence.

Not Just Muscles. Not Just Discipline.

Our culture still clings to tired stereotypes. The “dumb jock” who peaks early and flames out. The aging executive who works 80 hours a week and sacrifices their health for success. The notion that brains and bodies live in separate silos.

But those who understand what it takes to sustain high performance across domains know better. The best thinkers, leaders, and caregivers recognize that physical health supports intellectual and emotional bandwidth. The ability to move well, recover efficiently, and maintain energy isn’t a bonus—it’s infrastructure. It’s the foundation that allows you to show up fully in every area of life.

And it’s not something you can cram for. Physical intelligence is built gradually—through attention, awareness, and thousands of micro-decisions: to train when you don’t feel like it, to go for a walk instead of collapsing on the couch, to stretch, to train the breath, to eat something that supports tomorrow rather than just today. These aren’t shallow acts of willpower. They’re an ongoing expression of care—for your future self, your work, and your relationships.

Aesthetic as Evidence, Not Vanity

Yes, physical intelligence often comes with aesthetic side effects—low body fat, lean muscle, the energetic presence of someone who moves without hesitation. But these aren’t the goal. They’re evidence.

Evidence that you’ve put in time. That you know how to regulate effort and recover well. That you’re not just surviving, but actively expanding your capacity. That you’ve maintained or reclaimed a physical literacy that many let slip away after youth. In that sense, your movement and appearance become outward signs of an internal ethic.

Unlike appearance alone, movement doesn’t lie. You can’t fake a fluid gait, a powerful squat, or the ability to sprint up stairs in your 50s. These are the results of accrued physical wisdom—trial, error, adaptation, and long-term consistency. They signal that you’ve built capacity, and with it, resilience.

The False Hierarchy of Intelligence

Culturally, we’ve long placed physical capability beneath so-called intellectual pursuits. Professions like politics, law, finance, and medicine are widely respected for their mental demands—yet rarely expected to model physical accountability. Their status is tied to thought leadership, regardless of whether their body can meet the basic demands of a capable life.

Meanwhile, those who train consistently, move with competence, and maintain physical vitality over decades are often seen as less serious—athletic, perhaps, but not thoughtful. This creates a false division between the physical and the intellectual, as if thinking well and moving well exist in separate realms.

But true physical intelligence is no less cognitive. It requires systems thinking, pattern recognition, and constant feedback loops—between stress and recovery, effort and restraint. The physically intelligent adult doesn’t just follow a plan; they troubleshoot, adapt, and refine in real time.

To care for one’s body across time takes foresight, discipline, and a respect for complexity. It’s not indulgence—it’s stewardship. And in many ways, it offers a more grounded expression of maturity than titles or accolades alone. The mind and body aren’t separate. Physical practice fuels mental performance. Mental clarity supports physical presence.

They feed each other.

It’s Not About the Gym

This is not about being a gym rat. This is not about chasing youth. It’s about being the kind of adult who takes ownership of the things that matter. Health. Strength. Mobility. Energy. The ability to walk long distances, lift a suitcase without straining, or drop to the floor to play with your kids without hesitation—these aren’t luxuries. They’re the bare minimum for a full life.

The problem is, we’ve normalized decline. We’ve let it become acceptable—even expected—for people to lose their ability to move freely, recover quickly, or trust their body by midlife. But that’s not age. That’s neglect.

And neglect is not neutral. It offloads responsibility. It passes the burden to others—your partner, your coworkers, your kids, your healthcare system. By contrast, someone who maintains or improves their physical capacity over time is someone who creates room for more—more responsibility, more freedom, more connection, more life.

Physical Intelligence Is Grown, Not Given

Physical intelligence is not innate. It’s not something you either have or you don’t. It’s a practice—earned in reps, hours, and conscious choices over time. And unlike other forms of intelligence that peak early, this one can keep growing if you stay engaged.

You don’t need to be elite. You don’t need to do handstands or run marathons. But if you want to show up for your work, your family, your goals—you need to build the body that can carry the load.

That means investing in capability, not just aesthetics. It means treating movement not as something you “should” do, but as something you get to do—something that keeps your mind sharp, your body durable, and your presence strong.

Final Thought

We admire those who seem ageless in how they move—but we too often reduce it to genetics or privilege. In reality, it’s work. It’s thought. It’s a lifetime of adult decisions stacked on top of each other. It’s not luck, and it’s not vain.

It’s a signal.

That you care.

That you’re capable.

That you understand what it means to lead with both strength and intelligence—and that you know those things are not separate.

They’re connected. And the most impressive people don’t just know that.

They embody it.

Confident in Uncertainty: Letting Go of the “One Right Way” in Health and Fitness

June 5, 2025

If there’s one thing that experience has taught me working in health, fitness, and rehab, it’s this: certainty sells, but uncertainty transforms.

In a world overflowing with five-step fixes and viral protocols promising guaranteed results, it’s easy to forget that every body is different—and that’s not just a slogan. It’s a biological, psychological, and contextual reality. The deeper you go into any healing or performance journey, the more you begin to see that there is rarely one “best” way to move, eat, lift, stretch, or recover. Instead, there’s a web of possible paths—some clear, some winding, and all shaped by individual needs and ever-shifting circumstances.

Still, our culture tends to reward confidence that looks like certainty. We’re drawn to experts who speak in absolutes: “Never round your back when you deadlift.” “This is the only anti-inflammatory diet that works.” “Running is bad for your knees.” The health and fitness industry is saturated with black-and-white thinking because it gives people the comfort of clarity in a very messy and personal process.

But real confidence—the kind that builds trust, facilitates change, and sustains progress—doesn’t come from clinging to dogma. It comes from acknowledging uncertainty, exploring it, and being willing to stay curious even when we don’t have all the answers.

The Allure of the “Best Way”

When someone is in pain, feeling weak, or trying to make a lasting change, they’re vulnerable. They crave guidance, and understandably so. A definitive answer feels like a lifeline: “Just do this, and you’ll be fine.”

This is why the idea of “best practices” or “optimal” strategies in injury recovery, nutrition, and training is so appealing. It promises relief from complexity.

But what’s optimal on paper may not be practical—or even possible—for the person in front of you. A rigid protocol doesn’t know that someone sleeps four hours a night because they’re caring for an aging parent. It doesn’t know that a client’s back pain is tied more to their stress levels than to their hip mobility. It doesn’t ask whether someone wants to squat or deadlift or run 5Ks—it just assumes they should.

So, when we lead with certainty—when we say “this is the best way”—we often miss the opportunity to actually help someone. Because helping someone starts with understanding them, not prescribing at them.

Uncertainty Is Not the Enemy

Uncertainty gets a bad rap. It’s often interpreted as ignorance or weakness. But in the context of health and fitness, uncertainty is simply an acknowledgment of reality.

It’s a recognition that:

The same treatment won’t yield the same result in two different people.
Someone’s nervous system, environment, and history shape their response to movement and stress more than any single muscle imbalance.
The body isn’t a machine; it’s a complex, adaptive system.

In rehab settings, this means accepting that a diagnosis doesn’t always predict function or pain. MRIs may show disc degeneration in people with no symptoms, and conversely, people with “clean” imaging may still be in debilitating pain. Knowing this doesn’t make us less skilled—it makes us more attuned to what’s really going on.

In training, it means we stop obsessing over perfect form and start paying attention to how someone feels when they move. We shift from “fixing” people to exploring with them. From enforcing the “right” way to deadlift to finding the way their body feels strong and safe pulling weight off the ground.

In nutrition, it means recognizing that the perfect macro ratio or anti-inflammatory supplement stack might matter far less than whether someone enjoys their meals, eats consistently, and isn’t under chronic stress about their food choices.

Uncertainty is not the absence of knowledge. It’s the presence of humility.

The Confidence to Say “I Don’t Know… Yet”

There’s a quiet kind of strength in saying, “Let’s figure this out together.”

It invites collaboration. It allows for experimentation. And it acknowledges that healing and growth are not linear processes with step-by-step guides. They’re deeply human experiences, filled with trial, error, learning, and change.

As professionals, our role shifts from being the answer-giver to being a curious, informed guide. We become co-investigators with the people we serve—paying attention, asking better questions, and adapting as we go.

Confidence in uncertainty also protects us from burnout. When we think we’re supposed to have all the answers, we carry an impossible burden. But when we embrace not-knowing as part of the process, we stay open, creative, and better able to support others through their complexities.

Curiosity Over Certainty

At Movement Professional, we talk often about being obsessively curious. This mindset is especially important when working with people in pain, or those who’ve “tried everything” and still feel stuck.

Curiosity allows us to notice the patterns others might miss. To ask, What happens if we try this differently? or What’s actually behind that tightness or fatigue? or What matters most to this person right now?

It also makes us better listeners.

Instead of just diagnosing and directing, we observe, we ask, and we adapt. We might try a breathing pattern to unlock hip motion. We might load a joint that seems fragile and watch it thrive. We might toss aside a rehab exercise because it’s not landing with the person—even if it “should” be working.

This process isn’t chaotic—it’s informed by evidence, experience, and intuition. But it’s not chained to protocol. It allows space for surprise and emergence. And that’s where the most meaningful change happens.

Letting Go of the “One Right Way”

There’s nothing wrong with having principles, frameworks, or systems. But when those become rigid rules instead of flexible tools, they limit us—and the people we’re trying to help.

Letting go of the “one right way” doesn’t mean abandoning science or structure. It means holding those tools lightly and applying them with context and care. It means having the courage to stay grounded when the path forward isn’t obvious.

The paradox is this: when we allow uncertainty into the room, people often feel more safe, not less. They sense that we’re not here to fit them into a method but to find something that actually fits them.

And in that space—between evidence and experience, structure and adaptability, knowledge and not-knowing—true confidence is built.

Closing Thought
Uncertainty isn’t a threat to our authority as health and fitness professionals—it’s a sign of maturity. It means we’ve moved past needing to prove we’re right and into the realm of being truly helpful.

So here’s to being confident in uncertainty. To exploring, adapting, and being humble enough to say, “Let’s learn together.” That’s not weakness—it’s the foundation of trust, resilience, and real transformation.

Learning from Pain While Gaining Function: A Shift Toward Longevity

May 26, 2025

In a culture where comfort is king, pain is often seen as the villain—something to be avoided, silenced, or eliminated as quickly as possible. But what if pain isn’t the problem? What if, instead, it’s a necessary teacher—a signal that invites us to explore, adapt, and evolve? When we shift our mindset from “eliminate pain” to “learn from pain,” we uncover a powerful path toward long-term function and physical longevity.

Pain as an Inevitable and Individual Experience

Pain is not only inevitable—it’s also highly relative. The same movement or posture can feel completely different to two people with identical injuries, and even within the same body, pain can appear under one context and vanish in another. This subjectivity reveals an important truth: pain is not always a reliable marker of damage or danger. More often, it's a sign that something in our system—be it structural, neurological, or behavioral—is asking for attention and adaptation.

To deny or suppress pain outright is to miss a valuable opportunity for learning. When we treat pain as feedback, rather than failure, we begin to build a deeper understanding of our bodies and how they function. That understanding is a cornerstone of both injury resilience and high-level performance over the long haul.

Redefining the Goal: From Pain-Free to Function-Full

Longevity is often confused with simply staying injury-free or pain-free, but that bar is far too low. The real goal is to retain and regain function across the widest possible range of physical contexts. That means being able to squat, hinge, carry, rotate, climb, sprint, and even sit or stand for long periods without compensations that accumulate into dysfunction.

And perhaps more importantly, it means gaining function in areas previously neglected. Most people are remarkably good at repeating the same movement patterns—the same lifts, the same workouts, the same daily postures. But functional longevity requires variability. The body thrives on novel input, and the nervous system is nourished by movement diversity.

Pain often shows up when function has been ignored or overly narrowed. That hip twinge during a hike, or that shoulder ache during your fifth day of bench pressing, isn’t always a sign of breakdown. Sometimes, it’s your body letting you know it’s time to expand your movement vocabulary.

The Beginner’s Mind: A Gateway to Progress

The concept of shoshin, or "beginner’s mind," is rooted in Zen Buddhism and emphasizes approaching experiences with openness, curiosity, and lack of preconceptions. In the context of movement and rehabilitation, beginner’s mind is incredibly potent.

When we’re new to something—be it a skill, a sport, or even a recovery process—our rate of improvement tends to be high. Progress comes quickly not because we're weak or broken, but because there's so much untapped potential. In contrast, when we become specialists in certain movements, we often plateau, and even regress. We get comfortable. We stop exploring.

Pain can be a forced reintroduction to beginner’s mind. It asks us to step back, reassess our assumptions, and start fresh. This might mean returning to foundational movements with new awareness, changing how we breathe, altering our loading strategies, or exploring entirely unfamiliar movement patterns. Pain slows us down, which—ironically—is often the exact stimulus needed to progress in a sustainable way.

Function Follows Awareness

To grow functional capacity, you first have to perceive what’s missing. And often, what’s missing isn’t strength or endurance—it’s attention. Awareness of how your feet contact the ground, how your ribs move when you breathe, how your pelvis shifts when you rotate—these small details create the foundation for improved movement efficiency and injury resilience.

Pain often heightens this awareness. It breaks our autopilot. It makes us hyper-attuned to areas we previously ignored. If you’ve ever had a nagging back injury, you know exactly how many steps it takes to walk to the fridge. You know the angle of your car seat. You know exactly when your posture starts to unravel. While this can be frustrating, it also provides an incredible window into refinement.

With guidance and patience, pain-induced awareness can be redirected from avoidance to exploration. It can lead to stronger, more coordinated, and more adaptable function than ever before.

Function Is a Skill, Not a Guarantee

It’s easy to assume that function is a default setting. But like any skill, function must be practiced, challenged, and redefined over time. In youth, movement variety is built into life. Kids run, jump, fall, roll, climb, and rest in all sorts of positions. As adults, we often trade that variability for convenience and specialization.

This isn’t necessarily bad—but it comes at a cost. Without regular functional challenges, we lose physical options. We lose robustness. And we become more vulnerable to injury when we inevitably step outside our usual movement patterns.

A functional longevity approach demands that we treat function as a practice—one that doesn’t end when pain resolves or when a fitness goal is achieved. Instead, we continue exploring, adjusting, and refining. We seek out new skills. We revisit old ones. We intentionally expose ourselves to unfamiliar movement contexts—often ones we’re not good at—and in doing so, we slow the aging process and extend the lifespan of our physical capability.

The Value of Function vs. the Cost of Discomfort

At some point, every person who values movement will face a difficult decision: Is the function I desire worth the discomfort it provokes? Whether that’s playing pickup basketball with an achy knee, hiking steep terrain with stiff hips, or getting back into jiu-jitsu despite a cranky shoulder—pain invites a choice.

You can avoid the activity. Or you can adapt your body to better tolerate and express that function. There’s no universally right answer. But the longer you live, the more frequently this question will arise. And the more you avoid, the smaller your world becomes.

We have to ask ourselves: How valuable is this function to me? What am I willing to do to keep it? For example, if basketball lights you up and connects you to community, health, and joy, giving it up because of pain may be far more damaging than committing to a process that makes your knees more resilient. That process may require strength training, mobility work, movement re-education, and a lot of time outside your comfort zone—but it’s an investment in keeping something deeply meaningful.

Function isn't free. It costs effort, adaptability, and often a temporary increase in discomfort. But avoidance has a cost too—one that may only be felt once too many of your favorite activities are already off the table. We should all decide what’s worth keeping, and then build our bodies to support that.

From Fixing to Evolving

It’s tempting to approach pain or dysfunction with a “fix it and forget it” mindset. But what if we saw those moments not as problems to solve, but invitations to grow?

Pain teaches us that function is never static. It’s constantly in flux—shaped by our choices, our environments, our stresses, and our habits. By reframing pain as part of a larger process of adaptation, we empower ourselves to stay in the game longer, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.

This is the essence of a movement practice grounded in longevity: not chasing perfection, but embracing imperfection as a catalyst for refinement. Not eliminating discomfort, but learning from it. Not repeating the same comfortable motions, but constantly seeking new edges of capacity and awareness.

Closing Thoughts

Pain doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means there’s something to be discovered.

Longevity isn’t just about extending time—it’s about expanding function. The more functional options you have, the more you can express your physical self. The more curious and engaged you are with your movement, the more durable that self becomes.

So whether you’re rehabbing an injury, exploring a new sport, or simply trying to age well, remember: improvement begins where familiarity ends. Start again. Start often. Stay curious. That’s the path to a long and functional life.

The Forgotten Side of Strength: Why You Need to Train the Ulnar Side of Your Grip

May 19, 2025

Grip strength is one of the most foundational elements of human movement and performance. But within this seemingly simple function lies a critical—and often neglected—detail: the role of the ulnar side of the hand in producing full-body strength, stability, and resilience.

When people train grip, they often default to emphasizing the thumb, which plays a central role in pinching, picking up, and manipulating objects. As the largest and most dexterous digit, it naturally becomes the focal point. This leads to a bias toward the radial side of the hand, where most unconsciously direct their effort—leaving the ulnar side undertrained and underutilized.

But if you ignore the ulnar side—the pinky-side of the hand and forearm—you’re leaving significant strength potential untapped.

🧭 Why the Ulnar Side Matters

The ulnar side includes:

The 4th and 5th digits (ring and pinky fingers)
The hypothenar eminence (the muscular pad at the base of the pinky)
The flexor carpi ulnaris, ulnar half of flexor digitorum profundus, and supporting wrist and forearm structures

These structures are critical for:

Wrist and hand flexion
Supination and torque production
Grip endurance during prolonged holds
Full-hand engagement during strength tasks

Ignoring this side of the hand is like skipping leg day for your grip.

🧠 Strength Requires Symmetry: Evidence for Ulnar Engagement

Research confirms that maximal grip strength isn't just about the radial digits. A 2020 study in the Journal of Biomechanics showed that the ulnar-side flexors (particularly the flexor carpi ulnaris and the ulnar portion of the flexor digitorum profundus) are heavily activated during peak grip efforts [1]. These muscles become even more important during sustained grip holds, where fatigue resilience matters more than peak force.

Another study in Clinical Biomechanics (2018) found that in tasks like carrying heavy loads or hanging from bars, the entire hand must contribute, and loss of engagement from the ulnar side significantly compromised total grip time and safety [2].

🧗‍♂️ Ulnar Grip in Action: Real Demands and How to Train Them

High-level grip demands in both the gym and sport don’t rely solely on the thumb or index finger. To truly excel at pulling, lifting, and hanging tasks, you need the full hand engaged—especially the often-overlooked ulnar side.

Below are key movements where the ulnar grip matters most, along with training strategies to build strength in those same patterns:

🏋️‍♂️ Heavy Deadlifts

Without full-hand engagement—especially from the pinky and ring fingers—the bar will roll out of your grip. These ulnar digits act as anchors, maintaining hold when radial-side fatigue sets in.
👉 Train It:

Barbell Torque and Lift: Compress the pinky side of your hand into the bar, apply crushing grip force, and screw your shoulders into their sockets to create full-body tension and stability. Once established, maintain this connection throughout the lift.

🧍‍♂️ False Grip Pulls: Building Ulnar-Side Strength Through Full-Range Tension

False grip pulls are a highly effective way to develop strength and control on the ulnar side of the hand and wrist. By anchoring the wrist over gymnastic rings and maintaining a flexed wrist position throughout the movement, these pulls place high demand on the hypothenar eminence, flexor carpi ulnaris, and the 4th and 5th finger flexors—areas often undertrained in standard grip work. This variation shifts the effort away from the thumb-dominant radial side and reinforces full-hand engagement.

👉 Train It:

False Grip Ring Rows: Establish ulnar-side engagement in a horizontal plane.

False Grip Overhead Hangs (with and without Foot Support): Build static strength and endurance at the wrist and hypothenar pad.

False Grip Pull-Ups: Pull through full range while maintaining wrist flexion and hypothenar compression.
False Grip Muscle-Ups: Advanced integration of grip, wrist, and full-body coordination under ulnar-side tension.

💡 Coaching Tip:
Keep constant pressure through the hypothenar pad and avoid letting your grip drift toward the thumb. Initiate the pull from the pinky-side connection for maximal transfer up the chain.

🚶‍♂️ Carries with Ulnar Emphasis: Flexed Wrist + Pistol Grip Combo

Combining a flexed wrist with a pistol grip—where the thumb and index are extended—forces the load onto the hypothenar eminence and ulnar digits, isolating and strengthening them under tension.
👉 How To:

Carry a dumbbell or kettlebell with the wrist slightly flexed.
Extend the thumb and index finger (like a “pistol”), gripping only with the middle, ring, and pinky fingers.
Focus on keeping the load balanced through the pinky-side of the palm.

💡 Progression:
Walk for time or distance, and increase load gradually, making the maintenance of the grip the priority.

🌀 Indian Club Training (Pistol Grip Variations)

Indian clubs offer a dynamic way to train the wrist and grip together. Using a pistol grip (thumb and index extended) during swings shifts demand to the ulnar stabilizers while improving shoulder, elbow, and wrist coordination.
👉 Train It:

Use light-to-moderate Indian clubs with a pistol grip.
Focus on circular or figure-8 patterns with controlled deceleration—pinky-side control is key here.
Maintain slight wrist flexion during the swing to increase hypothenar activation.

💡 Bonus: This method also reinforces forearm pronation/supination mechanics while increasing grip endurance and neural control.

🎯 Final Thought

By layering real-world movement with targeted training that isolates and strengthens the ulnar side, you not only enhance your grip but also protect against imbalances, overuse, and early fatigue. Training the pinky-side of your hand might be the smallest change you make—but it could unlock your biggest gains in pulling strength, grip durability, and injury resilience.

📚 References

Vigouroux, L., Quaine, F., & Labarre-Vila, A. (2020). Muscle usage and strength profile in elite rock climbers during gripping. Journal of Biomechanics, 104, 109722. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiomech.2020.109722
Budoff, J. E., Logan, A. J., et al. (2018). Functional grip performance and muscle activation during load carriage. Clinical Biomechanics, 54, 48–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinbiomech.2018.03.001

What’s Wrong vs. With What: Rethinking Musculoskeletal Pain

April 28, 2025

When it comes to musculoskeletal pain—whether it’s an aching shoulder, a stubborn back, or a nagging knee—most people start with the same question:

“What’s wrong?”

This is a natural and understandable instinct. Pain grabs our attention, and we want answers. In many cases, the “what’s wrong” mindset leads us to seek a diagnosis: a label that identifies the source of our discomfort. Maybe it’s a herniated disc. Maybe it’s rotator cuff tendinopathy. Maybe it’s hip impingement. These diagnoses carry the weight of something damaged—something broken that needs fixing.

But here’s the problem.

The “what’s wrong” approach often assumes there’s a single, static cause—one that a practitioner can pinpoint, and one that will lead to a clear treatment path. It reinforces the idea that pain is the result of something that has gone awry and needs to be externally repaired. It frames the patient as the passive recipient of care. And it encourages a search for the one magic fix—be it a pill, a shot, or even surgery.

Yet, for most people dealing with persistent musculoskeletal pain, that approach rarely provides the whole story.

There’s another question we could ask instead:

“With what?”

That may sound vague at first, but it’s a fundamental shift in perspective. “With what” turns our attention toward how we’re moving, loading, adapting, and using our bodies. It acknowledges that pain is not just a mechanical failure, but a signal—an invitation to change something in the way we move, breathe, stand, train, or recover.

Let’s break this down.

The Trap of the “What’s Wrong” Model

Pain, especially when it lingers or recurs, feels like a warning light. So it makes sense that people want to know what’s broken. This mindset is rooted in the structural model of medicine, which has historically been very successful in acute trauma cases. If you break a bone, you get an X-ray. It shows the break. The diagnosis matches the damage. You get a cast, and it heals.

But chronic or movement-related pain is rarely that simple.

Someone might get an MRI of their lower back and be told they have degenerative disc disease. That sounds scary—but countless people without any pain at all have similar imaging findings. A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that many people have bulging discs or arthritis visible on scans but report no symptoms.

What’s more, the diagnosis itself can shape the experience of pain. When someone is told they have a “torn” structure or that their spine is “degenerating,” it often creates fear. That fear can reduce movement, increase guarding, and heighten sensitivity—ultimately reinforcing the pain.

In this model, the body is treated like a machine that breaks down. The job of the provider is to find the faulty part and fix it.

But humans aren’t machines. We are adaptable, ever-changing systems. And most pain isn’t a sign of damage—it’s a sign of load intolerance or movement inefficiency. That’s where the “with what” question becomes powerful.

The Wisdom of “With What”

Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with my shoulder?” we might ask:

With what movement does it hurt?
With what level of load, intensity, or duration do symptoms show up?
With what positioning do I feel relief—or increased discomfort?
With what breathing or bracing strategy am I unconsciously moving?
With what muscle groups am I compensating?

This approach accepts that pain is real, but views it as a signal, not a diagnosis. It shifts the focus from finding damage to identifying a pattern. It’s a question of capacity and context.

Take someone who has knee pain while squatting. The “what’s wrong” model might lead to imaging, a diagnosis like chondromalacia, and a prescription for rest and NSAIDs. But the “with what” model asks what kind of squat causes pain. Is it a deep squat? A narrow stance? With load or without? Can they tolerate a lunge or step-up?

Now we have information.

Maybe they lack ankle mobility, so their knee tracks forward too early. Maybe they shift weight toward one leg. Maybe they don’t engage their hips. Rather than blaming the knee, we explore with what movement strategy the pain is emerging—and more importantly, how it might be improved.

Pain becomes part of the feedback loop.

From Diagnosis to Dialogue

The beauty of the “with what” mindset is that it puts the person experiencing pain back in the driver’s seat. It invites experimentation. It encourages curiosity. And it makes the process of recovery more collaborative and exploratory—not just a passive wait for someone else to “fix it.”

This mindset shifts the focus from fear to skill. Instead of reacting to pain with panic or avoidance, it encourages observation and adaptation. You begin to see pain not as a sign of failure, but as a prompt to explore. You might modify the load you're using, change your movement strategy, vary your warm-up, adjust your recovery habits, or reflect on sleep and stress levels.

Pain isn’t ignored—but it isn’t catastrophized either. It becomes part of a thoughtful feedback system.

Ask:

With what habits did this pain develop?
With what changes does it improve?
With what inputs—be it strength training, breathing, walking, or recovery strategies—can I build resilience?

The answers may not be instant. But they lead to self-efficacy, not fear. And that shift—from diagnosis to dialogue, from passivity to participation—is where real progress begins.

The Practitioner’s Role

This shift doesn’t mean practitioners aren’t needed. Quite the opposite. A good physical therapist, trainer, or movement specialist is trained to ask these “with what” questions. They observe patterns, assess load tolerance, test capacities, and guide the process of movement re-education.

Rather than simply delivering a diagnosis, they become a coach in the discovery process.

This is why two people with the same diagnosis can have completely different outcomes. It’s not about what the MRI says. It’s about how each person moves, adapts, and responds.

Final Thoughts

The next time you’re in pain, consider reframing the conversation.

Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” ask, “With what inputs, patterns, or demands did this pain emerge—and how might I change them?”

Pain is rarely just about damage. It’s about information. About load. About perception. And about adaptability.

When you stop seeking a fix and start seeking understanding, the path forward gets a lot clearer.

You are not broken. You are responding.

And that means you can respond differently.

Obsessive Curiosity: Rehabbing with Persistence and Openness

April 21, 2025

When you're working through an injury—whether it's a nagging tendon issue, post-surgical recovery, or a flare-up of something chronic—it's easy to fall into extremes.

You might become paralyzed by fear: constantly scanning your body for danger, catastrophizing every twinge, and backing away at the first sign of discomfort. Or you might go the other way: stubbornly pushing through pain, trying to "tough it out," and repeating the same aggravating behaviors day after day.

But there’s a middle way. One that’s grounded in action, but also awareness.

A way of showing up again and again—not to force your body into submission, but to listen, learn, and adjust.

This is called being obsessively curious.

What Does It Mean to Be Obsessively Curious?

Let’s break this down.

“Obsessive” - Consistency Without Burnout

We’re not talking about obsessive in a pathological sense, but rather a form of relentless engagement. An obsession with showing up. Not once in a while when you’re feeling good, or when life is easy—but every day, in some form, regardless of outcome.

This kind of obsession isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing with intention. Returning to your breath, your exercises, your movement routines—not because they’re always fun or exciting, but because you’ve made a commitment to your recovery.

“Curious” - Judgment-Free Observation

Curiosity means approaching your body like a scientist, not a judge.

Instead of labeling pain as “bad” or improvement as “good,” curiosity asks:

What happens when I do this movement slower?
Does breathing differently change the outcome?
How does my body feel in the morning vs. the evening?
What if I try a different foot position?
Is this a protective response or tissue damage?

This is not about guessing blindly—it’s about making small, measurable experiments and tracking the results. Curiosity also keeps you from getting too attached to one solution. If something isn’t working, you don’t give up—you pivot.

The Problem with Binary Thinking in Rehab

So many people get stuck in the “black and white” trap:

“It hurt, so it must be bad.”
“It didn’t hurt, so I must be good to go.”
“I missed a day, so I’ve failed.”
“I trained through it, so I’m winning.”

Binary thinking closes the door on exploration. Curiosity, on the other hand, invites nuance.

For example: a little discomfort during rehab isn’t necessarily a red flag—it might be part of the adaptive process. But if it spikes to sharp pain, swells afterward, or lingers for hours, that’s feedback to change course. The curious mind sees this not as failure, but as data.

Obsessive Curiosity in Action

Let’s say you’re dealing with Achilles tendinopathy. Here’s how obsessive curiosity might play out:

Start with a Baseline
Measure your pain on a scale, test your range of motion, and note which activities aggravate the issue.
Introduce a Variable
Try slow heel raises off a step, 3x/week. Vary the tempo. Test how it feels at different times of day.
Track Everything
Journal your sessions. Note energy levels, stress, nutrition, sleep, and pain scores.
Ask Questions
- What if I shift my weight medially?
- What if I do this after isometrics?
- How does adding toe-spread activation influence symptoms?
Zoom In and Out
Look at individual data points, but also the broader trend over weeks and months. Is there progress?

Fear vs. Curiosity

It’s important to distinguish curiosity from fear.

Fear says:

“Don’t do anything that might hurt—it’s not worth the risk.”

Curiosity says:

“Let’s see how my body responds to a small, controlled test. If it doesn’t go well, I’ll adjust.”

Fear is reactive. Curiosity is responsive.

Fear narrows the field of action. Curiosity expands it.

This doesn’t mean being reckless. You still use structure, evidence, and expertise—but you also honor your body’s complexity. Healing is rarely linear, and curiosity gives you the tools to adapt.

How to Cultivate Obsessive Curiosity

This mindset isn’t automatic. But it can be trained:

Keep a rehab log. Track symptoms, sets/reps, sleep, stress, and any questions that come up.
Change one thing at a time. Avoid the urge to overhaul everything—otherwise, you won’t know what helped.
Reflect weekly. Ask: What improved? What didn’t? What did I learn?
Practice mindfulness. Get comfortable observing your body without judgment. Meditation or breathwork can help build this skill.
Work with someone who supports inquiry. Whether it’s a PT, coach, or movement professional, find someone who encourages feedback and exploration, not rigid programming.

The Long Game

Injury recovery is a process of reintroducing your body to challenge without overwhelm. And the truth is, nobody—not even the best therapist or coach—has all the answers on day one.

But obsessive curiosity gets you closer.

It says: “I’ll keep showing up. I’ll keep asking questions. I’ll keep refining. And over time, I’ll figure it out.”

Not through force.

Not through fear.

But through persistent engagement, clear-eyed observation, and a deep respect for your body’s wisdom.

Ready to put obsessive curiosity into practice?

Start small. Ask one question. Track one thing. Test one change. Then come back tomorrow, and do it again.

That’s how progress becomes not just possible—but inevitable.

Meditation and Momentum: The Art of Returning to the Practice of Health

April 14, 2025

In seated meditation, one of the first lessons you learn is that the goal isn’t to stop your thoughts—it’s to notice when your attention drifts, and gently return it to your chosen object of focus, whether that’s your breath, a mantra, or bodily sensations. The power of meditation lies not in maintaining perfect attention, but in the repeated act of coming back.

This simple but profound discipline—the act of returning—has a powerful parallel in how we approach our health behaviors: exercise, nutrition, sleep, hydration, mindfulness, and beyond. Like meditation, the pursuit of health isn’t a straight, unbroken line. It's a winding path, marked by detours, distractions, regressions, and restarts. And just like in meditation, the magic is in the returning.

The Myth of Perfect Consistency

Many people set out on a health journey with the idea that consistency means perfection. They might start a new training plan, a clean diet, or a sleep routine with great enthusiasm, only to fall off for a few days and then feel as though they’ve failed. The setback becomes a stopping point, instead of just a pause.

But the reality is, even the most experienced practitioners—whether in meditation or in movement—lose focus. They skip workouts. They eat impulsively. They stay up too late scrolling. What sets long-term success apart is not unbroken perfection. It's the ability and willingness to begin again.

The Practice of Coming Back

In meditation, you don’t judge yourself for losing focus. You simply notice, and return. There’s a gentle but disciplined self-compassion in that moment. It’s not passive. It’s active. You’re training your mind to come back with awareness.

The same mindset can be applied to health behaviors. When you miss a few days at the gym, it’s not the end of your fitness identity. When you overeat, it’s not a negation of your nutritional goals. When sleep is disrupted by stress or obligations, it doesn’t mean you’re failing at self-care.

These moments are just what they are: moments. You always have the opportunity to return.

In fact, each return is a kind of micro-victory. It’s proof that you are someone who continues to show up, even when life makes it difficult. That builds confidence far more than a streak of perfect days ever could.

Building a Health Practice, Not a Health Project

One of the gifts of a meditation practice is that it shifts your relationship with time. You stop thinking of meditation as something to check off a list, and start treating it as a practice—an ongoing relationship with yourself.

Health behaviors benefit from the same shift in mindset. Too often, people approach their health like a short-term project: a 30-day challenge, a new year’s resolution, a pre-vacation diet. These projects can provide short bursts of motivation, but they often lack the sustainability of a true practice.

When health becomes a practice, it stops being about endpoints and starts being about process. You don’t “finish” exercising or sleeping well or eating with intention. You keep doing it. Not because you have to, but because it becomes a way of tending to yourself. It becomes a rhythm you return to—not a rule you break.

Mindfulness in Motion

The skills cultivated in meditation—awareness, non-judgment, intentional redirection—are deeply useful in navigating your health. For example:

When you’re mindful of your body, you’re more likely to notice when it needs movement or rest.
When you’re mindful of your hunger and satiety cues, you eat with more attunement.
When you’re mindful of your stress levels, you’re more likely to prioritize recovery and calm.
When you’re mindful of your habits, you can see patterns without self-blame, and gently steer toward better ones.

This isn’t about being hyper-vigilant or controlling. It’s about being present. Mindfulness gives you the power to pause, observe, and respond, rather than react automatically. It’s the space where real change happens.

The Breath and the Body

In seated meditation, the breath is often the anchor. It’s always there, always available. No matter how far the mind wanders, the breath is home base.

In health practices, we can identify similar anchors—behaviors that bring us back into alignment. Maybe for you, it's a short morning walk, a few minutes of breathwork before bed, prepping a nourishing meal, or showing up for a weekly strength session. These behaviors can serve as reset buttons—not to make everything perfect, but to remind you that you’re still on the path.

Start with one. Let it bring you back. Then another. Soon enough, you’re back in rhythm.

Returning with Compassion

It’s worth emphasizing: the tone with which you return matters. In both meditation and health, a harsh, critical inner voice only makes returning harder. If every time you miss a day you punish yourself mentally, you’ll begin to associate the practice with shame. That leads to avoidance, not adherence.

Instead, aim to return with curiosity and compassion. Ask yourself, not “What’s wrong with me?” but “What happened?” Not “Why can’t I be consistent?” but “What do I need right now to feel supported in this practice?”

Forgiveness fuels resilience. Compassion sustains momentum.

The Beauty of the Long View

If you’ve ever sat for a longer meditation retreat, you know that attention will drift a hundred times in an hour—and that’s okay. Likewise, if you zoom out on a lifetime of health, you’ll see countless ups and downs. Some seasons will be strong, structured, and disciplined. Others will be messy and inconsistent.

Zoom out even further, and the fluctuations flatten out. What remains is your tendency to come back. Over time, this is what makes you healthy: not a single phase of peak performance, but your persistent return to care.

This is how you build longevity—not by forcing perfect adherence, but by learning the art of re-engagement. Of listening. Of returning.

A Daily Invitation

Every day is an invitation to come back to your breath, your body, your values, your health. Even if yesterday felt like a detour, even if today started off-track—there is always a moment to begin again.

In meditation, they say “start again” with gentleness. That same wisdom applies here. Start again, not out of guilt, but out of gratitude—for the chance to care for yourself.

You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to return.

The Movement Continuum: What Are You Ready For?

April 7, 2025

If you’ve ever tried a new exercise or returned to working out after a break and thought, “Why does this feel so hard—or even painful?”—you’re not alone. Movement isn’t just about strength or flexibility. It’s about control. And when we don’t have control in certain positions or during certain motions, our body finds ways to compensate—sometimes in ways that lead to injury or burnout.

That’s where The Movement Continuum comes in. This approach helps you—and your coach or therapist—understand how your body moves, where you might be struggling, and how to build back movement patterns in a way that feels safe, effective, and sustainable.

Let’s break it down.

What Is the Movement Continuum?

At its core, the Movement Continuum helps identify what parts of a movement your body can control and where it might be losing control. That’s super important, because movement should feel strong and steady—not shaky, painful, or restricted.

This system helps answer questions like:

“Why does my back hurt when I squat?”
“Why do I feel out of breath holding a plank?”
“Why can I go down into a lunge but not back up without wobbling?”

By breaking movements down into two parts—positions and transitions—we can find out exactly what’s working and what needs attention.

Positions and Transitions: Your Movement Building Blocks

Position is just what it sounds like—being in a certain shape or posture. Think about:

The bottom of a squat
Holding the top of a push-up (plank)
Hanging from a pull-up bar
Standing on one leg

These are positions. They’re great for checking if your body is aligned, stable, and breathing well. They also give us clues about how your joints and muscles are working together.

Transition is the motion between those positions. For example:

Moving into or out of a squat
Lowering yourself down during a push-up
Stepping into a lunge and then standing back up

This is where a lot of control gets tested. Can you move smoothly and without pain? Can you keep your form as things speed up or get heavier?

4 Signs You Might Be Losing Movement Control

Understanding how you move isn’t just about what you can do—it’s also about what your body might be telling you. There are four main signs we look for:

1. Pain

Do you feel pain while holding a certain position?
Does it hurt as you move from one position to another?
Does pain show up after your workout?

These are all important clues. Pain is never “just part of training”—it’s feedback.

2. Breathing

Can you take a full breath while holding a position?
Does your breathing match your movement when lifting, jumping, or running?

If you’re holding your breath or gasping for air, your body might be working harder than it needs to. Breathing should match the intention of the movement. Sometimes that means calm, relaxed breaths in a static position. Other times, it means using breath to pressurize and stabilize your body during a more intense effort—like bracing for a heavy lift or powering through a sprint.

3. Posture and Stability

Can you get into the intended position (e.g. a deep squat)?
Can you stay there without shaking, falling over, or feeling exhausted after a few seconds?

If the answer to either question is no, that’s not a failure—it’s feedback. Mobility is your ability to get into the intended position. Stability is your ability to maintain control once you're there—especially as the position becomes more challenging. We want both, and the good news is they’re both trainable.

4. Impact Control

Can you control your landings, or are you falling when coming into contact with the ground or another surface?

Whether it's jumping, stepping down, or changing direction, your ability to absorb force and manage impact tells us a lot about your movement readiness.

How We Build Better Movement (Step-by-Step)

Here’s the good news: once we understand where control is missing, we can train it—just like building strength or endurance. We start where you are and progress at your pace.

To improve positional control, we might:

Remove help or support gradually (like using less assistance from a wall or band)
Change your stance or surface to gently challenge your balance
Adjust the angle of your limbs to make holding a position harder or easier

To improve transitional control, we might:

Slow things down to work on strength through the full range
Add resistance and gradually increase it
Practice moving between positions with intention before adding speed or weight

This isn’t just about avoiding pain or playing it safe. It’s about building confidence, safety, and capacity—so you can do more of what you love, with less risk of injury. It can absolutely be about chasing personal records—as long as your body is ready for it. The Movement Continuum helps make sure you’re progressing at the right pace, with the right foundation underneath you.

Why This Matters for You

The Movement Continuum isn’t just for athletes or people recovering from injury. It’s for anyone who wants to:

Feel stronger and more balanced in daily life
Get back to exercise safely
Bridge the gap between rehab and performance by showing you what you’re ready for—and when
Improve performance without sacrificing long-term health
Understand why some movements feel harder than others

This approach gives you a clear roadmap. No more guessing. No more pushing through pain. Just a smarter, more personalized way to train, move, and thrive.

The Bottom Line

You don’t need to avoid your favorite activities—you just need a clear system to assess what you can control right now, and how to build from there.

That’s what the Movement Continuum offers: a simple, structured way to understand how your body is moving, where it’s strong, and where it needs support. It helps take the guesswork out of training, so you’re always working at the right level, with the right focus.

Progress starts with knowing your baseline. From there, everything becomes more intentional—and more effective.

📘 Go Deeper into the Movement Continuum
If this blog sparked your interest, you can dive much deeper into the Movement Continuum in my book, Longevity Through Movement. It serves as the foundation for understanding how to assess, restore, and progress movement with clarity and purpose. Inside, you'll find detailed guidance, real-life applications, and the full system that helps you train smarter and move better—no matter your age or background.

How the Nervous System Shapes Blood Flow

April 1, 2025

Your body’s blood flow isn’t simply determined by your heart’s pump—it is intricately shaped by your autonomic nervous system and how you position yourself in space. Whether you’re in an active state of “fight or flight” or a relaxed, restorative mode, your posture, gravity, and even the way you lie down can greatly influence where blood goes: to the front versus the back, to the core versus the extremities. Let’s dive into the interplay between these factors and how you can use them to improve overall health and well-being.

The Autonomic Nervous System: Your Internal Command Center

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) has two complementary divisions:

Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS): This branch mobilizes energy for immediate action. It’s active when you’re in “fight or flight” mode—preparing you to face challenges, engage in physical activity, or respond to stress.
Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS): Often referred to as the “rest and digest” system, the PNS supports recovery, healing, and internal regulation. It promotes processes such as digestion and restorative breathing.

Each system influences not only heart rate and blood pressure but also where blood is sent in your body—from the muscles of your limbs to the organs deep in your abdomen.

Sympathetic Circulation: Propelling Forward for Action

When you’re operating in a sympathetic state, your body gears up for action. Blood flow is directed toward the front of your body and your extremities to support immediate physical engagement.

1. Forward-Focused Circulation

Front of the Body: In a state of sympathetic readiness, blood is preferentially sent to the chest, quads, shins, forehead, and the front of the abdomen. This supports activities like speaking, reaching, running, or defending.
Propelling Forward: You might notice a subtle “propelling forward” posture with a forward head position, a raised or flared ribcage, and a tensed abdomen. This posture is excellent for rapid action, but over time, it can lead to excessive strain patterns throughout the body.

2. Implications for the Abdomen and Extremities

Abdominal Circulation: With sympathetic activation, blood is often shunted away from the visceral organs. Reduced circulation in the digestive tract can impair nutrient absorption and even cause feelings of gut discomfort.
Extremity Flow: While blood initially flows toward the limbs to prepare for rapid movement, chronic sympathetic dominance may eventually lead to peripheral vasoconstriction. This can result in cold hands and feet, numbness, or even diminished fine motor control.

Parasympathetic Circulation: Falling Back for Restoration

When it’s time to recover and digest, the parasympathetic system takes over, shifting blood flow to support internal healing and balance.

1. Back-Body and Core Replenishment

Falling Back: In a parasympathetic state, your body is encouraged to “fall back”—allowing weight to drop into a balanced posture. This means letting the back of your head, ribcage, and pelvis find support instead of continuously propelling forward.
Balanced Posture: A balanced posture lets blood return to the back of the body, where the spine, glutes, hamstrings, and deep core muscles reside. This not only stabilizes your posture but also improves circulation to areas essential for digestion and internal regulation.

2. Abdominal and Extremity Circulation

Visceral and Abdominal Flow: With the body falling back into balance, the abdomen receives increased blood flow, which is crucial for digestive processes, detoxification, and hormonal balance. Many people notice a gentle warmth or pulsation in the stomach area during relaxation practices.
Steady Extremity Flow: In the PNS state, circulation to the arms and legs becomes more even and less prone to the extremes of vasoconstriction. This balanced flow supports better thermoregulation and more refined motor control.

Posture, Gravity, and the Art of Orientation

Your posture—and how you position your body relative to gravity—plays a vital role in determining your circulatory patterns. Let’s explore how different postures affect your body’s blood flow.

1. Propelling Forward: Upright Posture

Engaging with Gravity: When you’re upright, your body must work against gravity, which often leads to a posture characterized by a slight forward lean. This “propelling forward” stance is common in active or stressful situations.
Circulatory Impact: This posture directs blood to the front of the body and to the limbs, which is ideal for immediate action but can leave the back and core undernourished if maintained for long periods.

2. Falling Back: The Power of Lying Down and Relaxed Postures

Lying Postures: Lying on your back or in side-lying positions naturally reduces the effort required to counter gravity. When you lie down, especially on a supportive surface, you allow your body to safely “fall into” the surface. This creates a safe environment for the parasympathetic system to promote restorative blood flow.
Examples of Restorative Lying Postures:
- Supine Position: Lying on your back with a slight elevation of the knees (using a pillow or bolster) can help relax the lower back and pelvis while enhancing abdominal circulation.
- Side-Lying: This posture, often used in practices like yoga or relaxation therapy, allows one side of the body to rest while still supporting balanced alignment and circulation.
- Supported Recline: Sitting in a reclined chair or using props in yoga nidra can also help your body fall back safely, reducing the need for active muscle engagement against gravity and encouraging blood to flow to the core and posterior chain.

3. Intra-Abdominal Pressure and Safe Postures

Pressure Dynamics: When you remain in a constant state of forward propulsion—chest lifted, ribs out, abdomen tense—excess pressure builds in the body. This can restrict blood flow to the digestive organs and lead to discomfort.
Balanced Pressure Through Lying: Allowing your body to rest in lying postures lets your diaphragm, pelvic floor, and abdominal wall coordinate more naturally. This “falling back” into a supportive surface distributes pressure evenly, enabling smoother circulation and reducing tension.

Practical Tips for Rebalancing Your Circulation

You’re not bound to a single circulatory pattern. With intentional practice, you can encourage the body to shift between a propelling-forward posture and a falling-back, balanced posture. Here are a few strategies:

1. Incorporate Breathing Techniques

Diaphragmatic Breathing: Practice deep, nasal breathing that emphasizes expanding the lower ribs and back rather than the chest. This approach encourages a falling-back sensation, easing blood flow into the core.

2. Practice Mindful Posture

How Easy Is It to Breathe?: Throughout the day, take a moment to assess your posture. Notice if you’re leaning too far forward and gently allow your weight to drop back. Observe how much effort is necessary to balance the head over the ribcage and the ribcage over the pelvis. Notice how the posture affects the breath. Is it easier to breathe? Harder? Connect the breath to the posture and get acquainted with the postures that make it easiest to expand the diaphragm front, back, and sideways.

3. Use Restorative Lying Postures

Daily Rest Breaks: Integrate periods of supine or side-lying rest. Even a few minutes of lying down on a supportive surface can help reset your circulatory system.
Yoga and Meditation: Practices that include gentle, supported reclining postures (such as yoga nidra or gentle restorative yoga) can be especially beneficial.

4. Engage in Movement That Rebalances

Strengthening the Back: Incorporate exercises that strengthen the muscles of the back and posterior chain (like deadlifts, rowing, or gentle crawling movements) to counteract habitual forward propulsion.
Mindful Movement: Practices such as tai chi or slow, deliberate stretching can help you feel the difference between propelling forward and falling back, adjusting your blood flow accordingly.

Final Thoughts: The Art of Balancing circulation

Your circulatory patterns are not just a function of your cardiovascular system—they are a dynamic reflection of your nervous system, your posture, and your relationship to gravity. When you’re constantly in a state of forward propulsion, your body sends blood to the front and extremities to fuel action. But when you allow yourself to fall back safely—especially through supportive lying postures and balanced movement—your body shifts into a mode of restoration and integration.

This balance is essential for digestion, emotional regulation, and overall health. By learning to recognize when you’re “propelling forward” versus “falling back,” you can make conscious choices to encourage more restorative blood flow, better organ function, and a more relaxed, resilient state of being.

Whether you’re using breathing techniques, mindful posture checks, or dedicated rest periods, each small adjustment is a step toward a healthier, more balanced life.

The Power of Showing Up: Why Participation Is the True Prize in Your Fitness Journey

March 26, 2025

We live in a world where accolades are often reserved for the winners—the fastest time, the most weight lifted, the highest box jumped. Fitness culture tends to glorify the extremes: the six-pack abs, the elite race finishers, the PR-crushing athletes. But in this chase for achievement, one of the most crucial aspects of any journey—participation—often gets lost in the noise.

In fact, the word “participation” has become something of a punchline. It conjures up images of dusty “thanks for trying” trophies handed out at youth soccer leagues, often used to criticize what some call the “softening” of a generation. But what if we’ve been misunderstanding the participation trophy all along? What if, especially in the context of your fitness journey, participation is the most important trophy you can earn?

Let’s unpack why showing up—even when you don’t feel ready, fast, or strong—is not only valuable but foundational.

Participation Is a Practice, Not a One-Time Act

Participation isn’t a checkbox. It’s a habit. It’s the daily decision to show up for yourself, even when motivation is low, even when progress is slow, and especially when the results aren’t obvious. It’s waking up early to move your body when you’d rather sleep in. It’s showing up to a workout class after a long day. It’s lacing up your shoes when you feel self-conscious or intimidated.

There’s immense courage in that.

People often overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year—if they’re consistent. Participation builds that consistency. And consistency? That’s what leads to transformation.

Participation Builds Identity

Every time you show up, you cast a vote for the person you want to become.

When you participate, you begin to shift from someone who wants to be healthy to someone who is actively in the process of becoming healthy. When you participate, you stop seeing exercise as punishment or obligation and start seeing it as a part of your identity.

Think of it like this: every walk taken, every rep completed, every stretch held, every meal prepped is a small act of self-respect. Over time, those acts become the bedrock of a lifestyle—one where health and movement are second nature.

You don’t need to win the race to change who you are. You just need to start lining up at the start line, again and again.

Progress Looks Different for Everyone

In fitness (and in life), we tend to measure success by narrow metrics—speed, size, weight, appearance. But true progress isn’t one-size-fits-all.

For some, participation might mean stepping onto a gym floor for the first time in years. For others, it might mean doing five minutes of breath work instead of skipping self-care entirely. For a new mom, it might mean prioritizing 15 minutes of movement amidst the chaos of parenting. For someone in recovery or dealing with chronic pain, participation might mean simply tuning into their body without judgment.

Every one of these efforts deserves to be acknowledged and respected.

We’re so quick to celebrate the person who lost 30 pounds but not the person who showed up to their first class, terrified and unsure. That’s a missed opportunity to honor the process over the outcome.

The Participation Trophy Deserves a Rethink

Let’s revisit that “participation trophy” for a second.

Yes, it’s easy to joke about rewarding mediocrity. But when it comes to fitness, participation isn’t mediocrity—it’s the most radical act of defiance against stagnation, self-doubt, and fear.

The participation trophy says: You showed up. You mattered enough to make the effort. You didn’t quit before you began.

And that’s no small thing.

Maybe we need more participation trophies—more ways to remind people that effort counts. That courage counts. That failing forward counts.

Because if we only celebrate the finish line, we alienate the vast majority of people who are still somewhere in the middle of the race.

Participation Helps Build Resilience

There will be days you don’t feel like moving. There will be weeks where progress stalls. There will be seasons where life throws curveballs—injury, illness, loss, or burnout.

But if you’ve built the habit of participation, you’ll return.

You may scale back. You may shift your focus. You may move slower. But you’ll return.

And that resilience—the ability to keep coming back—is one of the most valuable outcomes of any fitness journey. It’s not taught in highlight reels or on Instagram feeds. It’s learned, over time, through the simple act of participating when it would be easier not to.

Participation Creates Community

One of the often-overlooked benefits of participating in group classes, events, or races is the connection it fosters.

You’re never alone in the struggle. Someone else is feeling self-conscious. Someone else is working through an injury. Someone else is starting over after a setback. When you show up anyway, you signal to others that they’re not alone either.

Communities thrive not just on talent or performance but on engagement. On people who are willing to show up, cheer others on, ask questions, share resources, and build something bigger than themselves.

Participation is the glue that holds these communities together.

Your Journey, Your Pace

You don’t need permission to start. You don’t need to be “fit enough” to begin. And you certainly don’t need to win anything to be proud of yourself.

Fitness is not about arriving at a destination—it’s about engaging with the process of caring for your body, mind, and spirit in a sustainable way. Participation is the heartbeat of that process.

So the next time you find yourself tempted to downplay your efforts because you’re “just showing up,” remember this:

Just showing up is everything.

Final Thoughts

It’s time we stop scoffing at participation and start celebrating it as the radical, brave, essential act that it is.

No, you may not always lift the heaviest weight or run the fastest mile. You may not always feel like you’re crushing it. But if you keep showing up—with humility, with effort, and with heart—you’re winning something far more important than a medal.

You're winning your health. You're winning your confidence. You're winning your life back, one day at a time.

So go ahead—take that participation trophy. You earned it.

The Foundations of Recovery: How Smart Recovery Leads to Stronger, Smarter Training

March 26, 2025

When most people think about recovery, they imagine lounging on the couch, taking a day off, or catching up on a TV series. While these may sound restful, they don’t always provide the type of recovery your body—and mind—truly need. Recovery isn’t just about stopping movement or being still. It’s about creating the optimal conditions for repair, adaptation, and future performance.

Recovery isn’t passive. It’s strategic.

Rest vs. Recovery: Going Deeper

Let’s first clear up a common confusion: rest is not the same as recovery.

Rest refers to periods of reduced activity, allowing the body (and ideally, the mind) to downshift. Sleep, meditation, mindful breathing—all excellent examples—intentionally lower sympathetic nervous system activity and promote restoration.

However, rest is not simply the absence of movement. For instance, sitting on the couch binge-watching TV may seem restful—you’re not physically active—but it can keep your brain overstimulated. Engaging with screens, loud media, or social scrolling can actually spike cortisol levels, increase mental fatigue, and interfere with deeper recovery processes like quality sleep and nervous system balance.

Recovery, on the other hand, is a broader, more active process. It includes rest but also integrates deliberate strategies—movement, nutrition, hydration, breathwork, and sleep hygiene—all aimed at restoring homeostasis and enhancing your ability to perform at a higher level next time you train.

Key takeaway:

Stillness ≠ Recovery.
True rest = Downregulating both the body and the mind.
Recovery = Comprehensive preparation for adaptation.

Why Recovery Matters: The Adaptation Equation

The fundamental goal of any training plan is adaptation—getting stronger, faster, or more skilled over time. That only happens if you allow for full recovery between stressors.

Here’s the cycle:

Training (Stress): You challenge your system.
Fatigue: Temporary breakdown and depletion.
Recovery: Active repair and rebalancing.
Adaptation: You bounce back stronger and more resilient.

The better you recover, the more frequently and intensely you can train without breaking down. It’s not about avoiding effort—it’s about maximizing your gains from that effort.

The Core Pillars of Recovery (And How They Truly Work)

1. Sleep: Your Recovery Superpower

Sleep is the most potent form of rest and recovery. It’s during deep sleep that the body undergoes tissue repair, hormonal regulation, and neurological reset. Growth hormone spikes, muscle protein synthesis occurs, and the brain consolidates motor learning.

Compare that to late-night screen time. Passive activities like scrolling your phone or binge-watching might seem relaxing, but they can leave your brain over-engaged, making it harder to settle into restorative sleep.

Recovery action steps:

Prioritize 7–9 hours of uninterrupted sleep nightly.
Limit screen exposure 1–2 hours before bed.
Opt for pre-sleep rituals like reading, light stretching, or breathing exercises instead of overstimulating media.

2. Mindful Rest: Meditation & Parasympathetic Activation

Mindfulness practices like meditation, breathwork, or quiet reflection allow for deep mental rest. Unlike passive screen time, these practices actively downregulate the nervous system, shifting you from the “fight or flight” sympathetic state to the parasympathetic “rest and digest” mode.

What’s key here: you’re intentionally engaging in practices that quiet both body and mind.

Recovery action steps:

Incorporate 5–10 minutes of diaphragmatic breathing or meditation daily.
Use guided relaxation techniques to calm mental chatter.
Avoid defaulting to overstimulating "veg-out" activities when you’re fatigued—choose something that actually soothes the system.

3. Movement-Based Recovery: Light, Intentional, and Capacity-Building

Active recovery—like walking, stretching, light cycling, or easy swimming—plays a crucial role in enhancing circulation, joint mobility, and nutrient delivery without adding undue stress to the system. It’s not about pushing limits; it’s about gently encouraging the body to stay mobile and engaged.

But there’s more: regular, lower-intensity, longer-duration movement improves aerobic capacity—which in turn enhances your body’s ability to recover. A well-developed aerobic system increases your efficiency at delivering oxygen, clearing waste products, and managing fatigue. That means you bounce back faster between hard training sessions and sustain higher-quality performance over time.

Additionally, mindfulness matters. Moving with intention—being aware of your breath, posture, and how your body feels—amplifies the restorative effect. Mindlessly going through the motions doesn’t give you the same benefit as movement done consciously, connected to how your system is responding.

Recovery mindset: Use low-intensity movement not just to avoid stagnation, but to build long-term recovery capacity. Gentle doesn't mean pointless—light movement stimulates growth, clears fatigue, and creates a stronger foundation for future training.

4. Hemodynamics: Supporting Circulation and Systemic Balance

One of the most foundational, yet underappreciated, aspects of recovery is hemodynamics—the regulation of blood flow and circulation throughout the body. Efficient circulation is essential for delivering oxygen, nutrients, and hormones to tissues while clearing out metabolic waste products. Simply put, good hemodynamics make recovery processes smoother, faster, and more complete.

However, circulation isn’t solely about the heart working harder. It’s influenced by breathing patterns, posture, movement quality, and autonomic balance. Shallow breathing, poor posture, or chronic stress can limit blood flow, preventing key areas like the diaphragm, ribcage, and pelvis from moving efficiently. This creates bottlenecks that impair how well oxygen and nutrients reach fatigued tissues—and how effectively waste products are cleared.

In addition to movement and breathwork, passive recovery modalities can complement and enhance circulatory dynamics:

Intermittent compression devices (like Normatec boots) use pulsing pressure to promote venous return, reduce swelling, and enhance lymphatic flow.
Certain electrical stimulation modes (such as low-frequency, pulsed stimulation) can gently activate muscles to assist circulation without adding mechanical stress to joints or tissues.

While these tools are helpful, they work best when integrated into a broader recovery strategy that includes active approaches like diaphragmatic breathing, low-intensity movement, and autonomic downregulation.

Recovery action steps:

Use diaphragmatic breathing drills to improve venous return and regulate heart rate.
Address postural imbalances and ribcage/pelvic positioning to optimize blood flow pathways.
Incorporate low-intensity, rhythmic movement (walking, cycling, swimming) to assist circulation without fatigue.
Consider intermittent compression therapy or light electrical stimulation as adjunct tools to boost blood flow and lymphatic drainage, especially post-training or during periods of heavy load.
Pair all circulatory efforts with nervous system-calming techniques (breathwork, meditation) to keep the body primed for efficient recovery.

Recovery mindset: Recovery doesn’t stop at the muscle level—it starts internally. Supporting optimal circulation through both active and passive methods creates an environment where every system (cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological) works together to speed repair and sustain long-term performance.

5. Nutrition & Hydration: The Ongoing Process of Fueling Repair

Recovery isn’t just about what you eat after a workout—it’s shaped by your entire nutritional approach. There are no quick fixes or magic foods that instantly accelerate recovery. Instead, it’s the consistent process of providing your body with the right resources over time that makes the difference.

Quantity, quality, timing, and intention all matter:

Quantity: Are you eating enough to support your training load and recovery demands—but not so much that it hinders recovery? Chronically undereating leaves you under-fueled, slows tissue repair, and suppresses adaptation. On the other hand, overeating, especially without regard to nutrient quality, can create unnecessary digestive stress, inflammation, and sluggishness—all of which blunt recovery and performance. Finding the right balance means matching intake to your output while staying attentive to how your body feels and performs.
Quality: Nutrient-dense foods—rich in protein, healthy fats, complex carbohydrates, and micronutrients—provide the building blocks your body needs to rebuild.
Timing: Strategically fueling before and after training supports energy availability, muscle repair, and glycogen replenishment.
Intention: How you approach eating—both mentally and strategically—matters. Consuming food distractedly, stressed, or in a hurry can blunt digestion and absorption, undermining recovery even if your food choices are technically sound. Beyond that, certain foods that serve a clear purpose in one context may be less beneficial in another. For example, easily digestible carbohydrates are valuable close to training sessions to fuel performance and speed recovery, but relying on those same foods outside of training windows can contribute to unnecessary calorie intake, blood sugar swings, or difficulty managing hunger cues. Being intentional means understanding not just what you’re eating, but why you're eating it at that particular time, and how it fits into your overall recovery strategy.

6. Managing External Stress: Don’t Undermine Recovery

Here’s something many overlook: non-training stressors—work deadlines, emotional strain, digital overload—compete with training stress and recovery resources.

Even if you lighten your physical load, spending hours doom-scrolling, consuming negative media, or juggling mental to-do lists taxes your system. It’s not restful, even though you're physically still.

Recovery action steps:

Set boundaries on media consumption, especially before bed.
Take breaks for intentional quiet time or breathwork throughout the day.
Recognize that mental overload can be just as draining as physical fatigue—and requires deliberate recovery too.

Recovery Isn’t Lazy—It’s a Performance Multiplier

The key shift is understanding recovery as an active, intentional, and strategic part of your growth—not simply “taking it easy.”

Mindless stillness or mental overstimulation ≠ recovery.

Smart recovery is:

Proactively downregulating both body and mind.
Supporting the body’s repair systems (sleep, nutrition, hydration).
Integrating low-intensity, intentional movement.
Managing mental and emotional stressors alongside physical stress.

When you approach recovery as a skill—not a break—you unlock:

Higher training capacity.
Fewer plateaus and injuries.
Greater gains over time.
More mental clarity and resilience.

Final Thoughts

Recovery isn’t earned only after pushing to exhaustion, nor is it something passive you default to when you're tired. It’s a conscious strategy, designed to keep you progressing, adapting, and thriving.

If you want to train harder, more often, and see better results—don’t overlook the art and science of real recovery.

The Ecological Approach: Information Is Already in the World

The Direct Approach to Skill Learning: Removing the Middleman

Taoism and Buddhism: The Direct Path of Awareness

four parallels

Parallel 1: No Mediator Required

Parallel 2: Trust in Self-Organization

Parallel 3: Variability Is Not Error, but Freedom

Parallel 4: The Untranslatable Nature of Truth

A Deeper Integration: Awareness as the Ultimate Affordance

Practical Implications: From Sports to Daily Life

Common Objections and Distinctions

Living the Direct Path

Conclusion: One River, Many Streams

Recommended Reading & Resources

Invariants vs. Variability: The Two Pillars of Movement

Why Overcoaching Holds People Back

Scaling Intention, Not Enforcing a Shape

Variability is the Path to Mastery

The Individual and Environment Are Never Separate

Safety is Contextual, Not Absolute

Practical Ways to Let People Mess Up

Case Study: The Squat

The Athlete Analogy

Why This Matters in Rehab

From Rigid to Resilient

Final Thought

Worshipping “Function”

An Expanded Perspective

The Versatility of Bodybuilding

Key variables that can be manipulated within bodybuilding include:

Strengthening Through Stretch: Hypertrophy & Tendon Resilience

Why might this work?

Why is this important?

Filling the Gaps

The Clinical Lens

"And" Not "Or"

Training and Nutrition: Better Together

No Graduation—Only Evolution

Closing Thoughts

References:

It Starts with Judgment of Others

Then Comes Self-Judgment

Next Comes Judgment of the System

Guilt, Shame, and Avoidance Lock Us In

The Hidden Cost of the Judgment Cycle

Breaking the Cycle: Seeing Clearly, Acting Consistently

The First Step: Consistency Over Perfection

Final Thought: Judging Less, Doing More

What Is a Burpee, Really?

The Problem Isn’t the Burpee. It’s the Programming.

The Safe, Progressive Burpee

1. Elevated Burpee

2. Step-Through vs. Jump-Through

3. Slow on the Way Down, Fast on the Way Up

4. Power vs. Flow

The Ability to Rise Isn’t Universal

When Burpees Belong (and When They Don’t)

Final Thoughts: Honor the Movement

Introducing the Comfort Continuum

The Cost of Chasing Comfort in the Moment

What Is Comfort Through Capacity?

The Illusion of Effortless Ease

Discomfort as a Signal, Not a Stop Sign

Capacity Is Invisible—Until It Isn’t

Building Comfort Through Capacity: A Simple Framework

The Bottom Line

Not Just Muscles. Not Just Discipline.

Aesthetic as Evidence, Not Vanity

The False Hierarchy of Intelligence

It’s Not About the Gym

Physical Intelligence Is Grown, Not Given

Final Thought

The Allure of the “Best Way”

Uncertainty Is Not the Enemy

The Confidence to Say “I Don’t Know… Yet”

Curiosity Over Certainty

Letting Go of the “One Right Way”

Pain as an Inevitable and Individual Experience

Redefining the Goal: From Pain-Free to Function-Full

The Beginner’s Mind: A Gateway to Progress