Is the body a machine a ray of light or just a large space potato?
One of the weirdest things I have seen in throughout my career in the fitness industry is the group that always claim the body is a "machine". The ads scream at you in bright colors with hardbodies flexing at the beach claiming that the reason you are out of shape is that your not training like a machine. Train like an athlete they shout, train harder and faster, with the cutting edge science and pre and post workout regimes and diet plans. Cutting edge technology and you know a lot of science ( I use science loosely here.) should fuel your health and fitness.
Well I have some news for you I am a moderate sized quasi cyclist and lifter with some weekend warrior tendencies and a hard curve on my dodgeball throw. I do not play for the NBA MLB NFL PGA or any other all capital letter anagrammed organization. I mainly lift so when someone asks me to help move their couch I can hold up my end. My diet is moderate and I don't feel the need to copy Dwayne Johnsons diet plan.
But on the flip side of that coin there are those who talk about the body being a ray of light in the cosmos and the way to better health is stretching and some movement. They talk in soft voices and low lighting telling you to breathe in the fire of the universe and that soon you will be the master contortionist able to fit into the smallest of airline seats while you sip hot water with lemon and become one with your colon.
Well the joke is on them too because I know I don't stretch enough. I drink too much coffee , pizza is delicious and the most contorted position I often find myself in is when I am laying on the couch during a NETFLICKS suggested viewing binge and as for my colon well we may need to discuss the tacos I had for lunch in a little bit.
So I am not going to be a machine or a ray of light. I am dubbing my body the great space potato. This potato carrying me through the universe and life is fairly limber and pretty strong. It could be stronger, it could be softer and more limber. But as space potato I can gather information and distribute it freely. I don't have to promote one or the other. I can utilize the knowledge that your potato could use a little muscle development in one area to ease pain while suggesting that holding emotional tension in your neck and shoulders should be addressed. That is the beauty of the space potato the rhetoric free fitness program that can adapt to the body and goals that you have or desire.
So maybe your looking to lose a little weight/ run that obstacle course. Maybe picking up the kids is getting a little tougher, or the grandkids are getting a little harder to keep up with; what ever your situation RE*FIT will be here to help you.
RE*FIT More fitness less rhetoric
"Do you think that is air your breathing now?" -Morpheus
My clients are very familiar with this interaction at REFIT
“I am tight in my right knee”
“ Interesting, I reply what did you do?”
“ I have no idea it just hurts.”
“ You know I am going to need more words.”
“ My knee is feeling pain here and it it feels very tight”
“Ok hop up on the table and we will take a look” as I begin to palpate the left hip and right glute.
“You know it is my knee rig…..ohhhhh what the actuall!@$#@ is that ?”
“Most likely the bigger cause of your issue.. i reply Now hop up and walk around”
Clients often come to me with “tightness”. They also know I ask another 30 probative questions about the tissue and immediately palpate the area in both directions.
According to a new study at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine I have good cause to do so
“A conscious experience of feeling stiff does not reflect true biomechanical back stiffness,” explained Greg Kawchuk, professor and back and spine expert in the Department of Physical Therapy. “When we use the same word, stiffness, to describe a feeling and how we measure actual stiffness, we assume these words are describing the same thing. But that is not always the case.”
The study asked participants to describe their sensation and then actually measured the range of movement to determine the level of “stiffness” through movement. “There was no relation between biomechanical stiffness and the reported feeling of stiffness,” he said. “What people describe as stiffness is something different than the measurement of stiffness.”
Tasha Stanton, lead author and senior research fellow of pain neuroscience at the University of South Australia, said that “the feeling of stiffness may be a protective construct that is created by our nervous system.”
“It’s our body’s way of protecting ourselves, possibly from strain, further injury or more pain.”
While in this study focus has remained on the back in general we know that stiffness through the body is pretty universal of a sensation. Clients often come to me with issues in the hips, knees, shoulders, legs all using the same terms to describe often very different issues and even more often from a source other than where they are feeling it.
“Words are important. The words patients use to describe a problem in the clinic may not be the same thing we as clinicians measure in the clinic,” said Kawchuk. “We need to find out what it means exactly when someone says they have a stiff back. We now know it might not mean that their back is mechanically stiff.”
What I chuckle at is what “THEY now know” my clients have been experiencing for over 10 years.