When you can’t figure out why you’re slowing down, it’s harder to breath, and everything is an uphill battle, RESET.  Inspect your foundation.  Build up from there.

Everyday I am reminded and humbled by how deep, “different strokes for different folks,” translates to all aspects of my life. Sometimes it’s as simple as remembering that the athletes I get to work with all learn a little differently and have unique motivations. 

Mind, body, and spirit are a unique balance of who we are, our reality. Too often, my ego tells me that I know or I understand. I forget to ask questions. I lose site of how unique we all are. I interpret answers through my reality. I believe that I comprehend situations but overlook the infinite variables contributing to others’ reality. I lose site of the beauty in contrast and the growth in learning. How do you see the world?  Is there room for different perspectives? Is it our world and our realities? Or, is the world yours and your reality the only valid perspective?

We all know:

Better Technique = Better efficiency. More Speed. Unprecedented Endurance. Less Injuries.

We need to understand:

Better Technique = Clear pathways between joints.
Better Technique = A road planned, paved, and travelled through the body.
Better Technique = Teaching the body to drive the best route, without directions.

Most of us think of technique as something we can think our way to changing. We know how to reach our hand further or  lift an elbow higher. We can lengthen our stride and do butt kicks with the best of them. We practice pushing a peddle faster and pulling up smoother. But where does that movement come from? Does your body know the best way to get that movement?

The road to reaching, lengthening, pushing, pulling, and every technique we try to implement, is series of joint actions and reactions. With over 600 muscles crossing more than 300 joints in seemingly random angles, our bodies need to learn how to make the right turns at the right time, movements that are specific to a each technique. Each joints follows the detours a life activity (or inactivity) creates. Disparities in strength, flexibility, and balance all affect how your unique body moves. Sometimes, this results in failure to engage the muscles in a  pattern that produces peak performance.

A movement program designed specifically for your body constructs new roads that teach the body quicker, safer, stronger, and faster ways to get from one point to the another. Flexibility, stability, and strength can reinforce these pathways but only when the navigation is clear. Stretching, yoga, bootcamps, and gym workouts are all awesome as long as they’re not reinforcing or creating detours in your movement. Know your body, then define YOUR workouts. How well do you understand the path of least resistance that YOUR body travels? All of us have detours, what are you doing to pave new roads to YOUR performance?