Natural Strength
Unnatural Strength
Springy Foundation
The most important tendon for healthy recoil is the Achilles. A slight turn to this tendon not only protects it from injury, but gives our whole body a free, low-impact ride in walking, running, and jumping.
When our feet are weakened by our unnatural lifestyle, both the Achilles and your knees are much more susceptible to injury.
Ankle Mobility Protects The Knee
Our ankle is designed to be extremely mobile on top of a very strong foot as shown here. When this doesn't happen, our knees and hips are much more prone to injury.
Natural Pushing and Landing
Nobody taught this baby that their knee spins IN relative to the foot when they push or that their knee spins towards the OUTside edge of the foot when they land.
We are born for healthy locomotion. We are born to walk and run without pain for long distances for the long term when we re-align with our natural movement blueprint.
By revisiting basic patterns like crawling, we can remember our design.
Efficiency
This one-legged athlete HAS to use the most efficient movement patterns to run. See how the knee bows OUT towards the outside edge of the foot when he lands and flicks IN when he pushes.
His head, shoulders, spine and hips are participating in one large spring-like action that uses his full bodweight to coil down and rebound out of the ground.
Squatting is Landing
Squatting is the end-range positoin of landing. Look at how much more range of motion this athlete has when she works with this pattern.
The United States has 4X the number of knee and hip replacements that Japan has. Despite having an industrialized economy, Japanese culture still contains aligned squatting, sleeping on the ground, and plenty of walking as part of normal adult life.
How we rest is also how we move. Reclaiming conscious resting positions is a powerful tool for restoring our design. Our willpower is limited so capturing easeful rest is a winning move!
Reversed Spiral
Most people who have sat in chairs for a lifetime without consciously training natural movement patterns are running and walking in reverse of their healthy coil design. No wonder our springs break!
Our glutes get tight and weak and then we start using muscles in the front of our body like our superficial abs and quads too much. This causes a lot of avoidable foot, hip, knee and lower back stress.
The greatest athletes that perform well for decades have the fewest injuries with because they somehow managed to maintain the natural alignment.
Hip protection
Our hips are designed to move along spiral lines.
When we stop trying to fight this and stop trying to flatten ourselves into misaligned shapes, we restore our design.
Many dancers, weightlifters, and athletes unfortunately are taught to work against this and there is an epidemic of hip replacements in athletic people under the age of 65 in the US...possibly BECAUSE of increased activity/exercise/stretching that works against our design!
Modern, chair-sitting spines are compressed
We have adapted so perfectly to leaning on chair backs that our spines on average are very compressed and prone to injury compared to our ancestors.
The far left image shows how even 30 years ago, before cell phones, the bones of the "average" spine were pinching disc and nerve tissue compared to the 1910 medical text book illustration where bones have safe and aligned room for these tissues.
Decompressing the spine is key to Moving as Designed- this allows us to rest into the strength of the back side of our body. Overtraining the muscles on the front side of the body can make this problem worse. Lengthening and strengthening the backside takes much less effort because it's our DESIGN!
Simple Ways to See Compression
Turning a picture upside-down and drawing a straight line through the ear down to the ground will show you which areas are compressed. because we are designed to let gravity flow through our bones at rest.
These compressed areas interfere with optimal breathing, walking, and running as well as making it harder for the fluids of our bodies to flow freely, nourishing and detoxifying our tissues.
2/3 of Our Muscle is On the Back Side of Our Body!
The muscles on the back side help us move FORWARD through space because we are mostly designed for tasks like walking and running forward. This was our evolutionary advantage and we are born to run.
When our back side is compressed, we have much less potential energy, less contraction potential.
This is why our training prioritizes actively engaging and utilizing the muscles of the backside of the body in elongated positions. This includes the glutes, hamstrings, and lats, prioritizing the power generated from the haunches and hips, leading to better posture, reduced injury risk, and movement efficiency
Tailbone Back Crown Forward
To restore our ability to move pain-free and powerfully, we decompress the spine and gradually re-establish back chain dominant patterns.
Predictable Imbalances
Bodies that sat with a tucked pelvis in a chair for decades have obvious shared patterns where the muscle is shortened (red) or overstretched (blue).
Prioritizing back-chain dominant training with a decompressed spine and proper foot pressure addresses these predictable imbalances.
Our Right-turning Spine
Have you ever wondered why the overwhelming majority of people are right-handed? This is not by chance.
The human body has an asymmetrical organ and brain which sets us up to favor the right side of our body, just like most apes do.
The human spine has a natural right turn to it and a slight right side bend.
As we get older and walk, run, and squat less and less, this pattern can be amplified enough to interfere with pain-free forward movement.
Knowing this can take a lot of mystery out of what to prioritize in our training to restore more movement options!
Restoring this symmetry can be simple using positions where we teach the whole body to turn equally to each side.