I sure do. I also know how it feels to reap the rewards of this state.
For instance, parallel dips and goblet squats are good for me.
I also WANT to do them. How convenient!

However, this is no accident.

I’m going to do you a favour and sum up my point of view on this very quickly, for those people with short attention spans, before I dive a little deeper:

• To make what you want to do good for you, do more of everything else that doesn’t harm you.
• To make what is good for you into what you want to do, closely observe the aftermath of your choices.

So, there you go. Case closed, nothing more to see here; catch you next time!

Or not.

Option #1

In Gym Movement Protocol, one of our best tools is the concept of Contraspecific Actions (or Movements).
In a nutshell, these are complementary actions to our goal actions or actions we are already taking.
(I discussed this concept a bit in the post linked just above, so I won’t rehash completely.)

One way to look at this concept is that “something isn’t ‘good for you’ when doing it has a disproportionately high cost to reward”.

Example: You have been dieting to lose weight for 3 days and you have accumulated a total energy deficit of 600 calories. You really feel like eating a blueberry muffin AND a caramel slice (maybe because you’re bored) at roughly 640 calories.
There is a reward involved: to you, it will taste good and that may make you mildly happier.
There is a cost involved: it goes contrary to your calorie reduction goal and puts you behind when you were ahead.

So, it’s reasonable to say at a BASIC level that this choice “isn’t good for you” because the cost probably isn’t worth the reward.

How do we then make this example into a state where it is “good for you”? (a.k.a. the opposite of above)

How about if we do MORE of the original opposing action, i.e. avoiding unnecessary calories?

Doesn’t that just make it “not as bad”?

Yeah, pretty much. Lets look a little closer though: if there is no such thing as the “best” food or “worst” food and EVERYTHING is dependant on how our body reacts and what our goal is, then isn’t “good” for you really just “better”?

And there WILL be a point when consuming any “empty” calories becomes better than consuming nothing! If you had racked up a 2000 calorie deficit in only 3 days and you felt like that 640 calorie hit, I’d say you can probably go for it and the relief from your (likely) strict dieting may be just the thing you need to be able to keep up your strategy in the long run!

This is kinda getting long, so…

I’ll just hit you with a few basic examples of “Point #1″ and discuss “Point #2″ in Part 2!

• Make relaxing and watching TV better for you by exercising more or reading more.
• Make drinking alcohol better for you by improving overall diet quality.
• Make staying up late better for you by sleeping for a longer time on more days.
• Make time “by yourself” better for you by improving your interaction with others.
• Make sitting down better for you by doing more work standing up.
• Make your favourite lift better for you by working movements that are NOTHING like it.

(Think this is too basic/obvious? Sure. Are you doing it though? Probably not as much as you could; I’d hazard no one is. Sometimes going back to basics is what we need, so think it through and feel free to comment!)

Don’t believe me? Don’t just take my word for it.  Look around and you’ll see a few places that are talking about the new Golden Age for boardgames. It’s nothing official, but let me tell you how I came to declare it for myself and why that might be something of surprising importance to you.

“The 5 Best Board Games of 2012” @ Kotaku Australia

Late in 2012, I happened to come across this article in my Kotaku Australia newsfeed subscription. (Yes, I am a video game geek, albeit largely inactive. Deal with it.) It was unusual, as Kotaku don’t usually mention board games, which piqued my interest enough to give it a read through. (Which I recommend.)

The games sounded incredible. Imaginative, challenging and unique. But the greatest part is that they contained experiences that I was missing.

Is your entertainment habit useful?

It’s often said that “human beings are creatures of habit”. I agree and I’ve mentioned how habits can be destructive or constructive in the past. Plenty of times in fact.

When we entertain ourselves, we generally have habitual activities we choose. However, these activities are not always as effective as you might hope. As someone who played video games a lot in the past, I often choose them, but it’s not unusual for me to play for a while then wonder why I am bothering to do so. I become restless and feel tired and irritable. When it comes to entertaining myself to aid my general recovery from life’s stresses, thisdoes not sound like it’s very useful…

So… just do something else, right?

Sure. What though? What could I try?

In Gym Movement Protocol, we heavily use the concept of Contraspecific Movements; movements that are “opposite” to Goal Movements in some fashion, movements that appear to function complementarily. This generally spurs greater progress generally and opens up the opportunity to progress specifically in the Goal Movement.

So, say “enjoying video games” is my Goal Activity.
How could I design a Contraspecific Activity to my Goal Activity?
What do I generally experience when I play a video game?

• Solo experience (primarily)
• Stagnant in movement
• Highly repetitive actions
• Artificial intelligence opposition (highly pattern based)
• Complete involvement (no other activities simultaneously)
• Constant involvement (It’s always “my turn”)

Of course, there are games that break any or all of those, but this is a general pattern and usually when I feel most restless and dissatisfied.

So, if I were looking for a Contraspecific Activity, I could look for elements that are dissimilar or opposite to those, like:

• Social experience
• Involves movement
• High variation of actions
• Organically intelligent opposition
• Partial involvement (ability to do other things simultaneously)
• Staccato involvement (alternating pattern of engaged and not engaged)

As you can see, the general play style of board games could satisfy almost all of these things (not so much the “movement” one, but better action is important, not perfect action). This helps me predict that if I can find games that involve these to the degree I find enjoyable, then it might help me find more of my life more enjoyable generally.

Is that statement too broad and ambitious? Only time will tell! What I can tell you is that I found great enjoyment in the experiment so far (playing “Order Of The Stick” with my lovely sister and her awesome partner) and I am dying to get to it again.

And this is not without correlation: one of my most surprising joys of recent memory was when I chose, completely against “character”, to spend some alone time at home on baking a simple Scone Loaf (which I had never done before) to share with my wife and daughter on their return. That such a simple act of including something “new” in my life could have a lasting and memorable feeling of satisfaction and joy was truly remarkable.

Let us all try to make our life contain more of these remarkable moments and surprising joys.
MY 2013 is The Year of The Board Game. What is yours?
Start here: What are you missing?

Related links: My Movement associates at The Movement Minneapolis posted some great articles on a similar topic recently. Having had similar thought patterns in recent time, I judge myself in good company.

1. February Challenge: Drive Your Top Line
2. New Experiences in the First Few Days of February

I can’t think of a much better experimentation process for this topic than that!
If anyone else reading this post has an article around this topic they would like me to add as a link, give me a heads up in the comments!

Yeah, I don’t know about “great”, “successful”, “happy”, “strong”, “healthy” or any of those other things people focus on.
Lets face it: many of those things are so dependant on context/circumstance that our control over them is very limited.

Try being all of those things, for example, when you work a physically demanding job AND then you get seriously injured in a car crash. I’d say it’s highly unlikely that your year would qualify as any of those particularly, but it’s hardly your fault.

So what can we do?

We can try to get better at betting better, that’s what.
No matter what your situation is, you can aim for “better”.
No matter how many setbacks you encounter, you can learn to deal with them better.
No matter how well you are progressing on your goals, you can learn to progress faster or in more directions.

So, what’s to clean up?

I have a lot on my metaphorical plate, these days.
This fact was, paradoxically, pointed out to me (as a negative) by someone who then tried to convince me to move from being a Union Delegate to a Union Secretary. (Successfully, might I add. Damn it.)
It is very tempting sometimes to take on many areas of our lives and try to progress simultaneously in all of them.

Frankly, it’s often not exactly the most productive thing to do, as the result can be constant progress but at a snail’s pace.

So, I’ll tell you how I’m trying to polish that plate off and get rid of the clutter.
Hopefully it may resonate with you and help us both out!

Beginning the process

Thinking about timeframes

Of the many things that I want to achieve, some will never (predictably) end.
I will always want to be a good attentive father and husband etc.
So, frankly, goalsetting seems to become fairly irrelevant there, in the larger scheme of things.

What I want is things I can “tick off” or “get done”.

Finishing what I’ve started

When you want to get things done, seems a good place to start is the things that are already started…

• Complete Cert III & IV of Fitness.
• Complete The Movement Biomechanics I coursework.
• “Strict” press my stupid 32kg kettlebell (long story why this is harder than it “should” be).
• Finish reading the books I’ve started.

You see, funnily enough, though I have many time-draining elements in my life, when I look at things that can be “finished”, the list is rather small.

Dividing smaller

Now, I can cut them into smaller pieces and show where the most effective place to start might be…

1. Individual assessments/lectures on my Cert III & IV.
2. Each chapter of each book.
3. Each “lab” video for Movement Biomechanics.
4. Each PR at KB pressing that moves me closer to my goal.

 Turning that into a plan

So, my plan (for now) is to take that list and look at it each time that I am lost for “something to do”.

Overall “life stress” can limit the energies we can put into our specific goals and it certainly “stresses me out” knowing that these are hanging over my head.
Every time I move closer on one of these, it will be a relief that might be greater than just “resting” could have been.

What do you have “hanging over your head” for 2013? Anything you can cut up, cut down or just cut altogether?
Drop me a comment below! 

I think better.
I move better.
I feel better.
I communicate better.
I care better.
I am better at getting better.

I can serve the things that are important to me in a better way.

I am better to my body.
I am better to my mind.
I am better to my wife.
I am better to my daughter.
I am better to (most) people I know.
I am better to people I don’t know.

But I can’t make everything better.

There will always be important things that need improving that I will not be engaged in doing so.

I want to create a better gym/fitness centre in Perth, because I am passionate.
It has become somewhat of “my area”, with my interests and engagement.
But…

We will need better schools.
We will need better medicine and hospitals.
We will need better environmental practices.
We will need better mental care.
We will need better governments.
We will need better philosophers.

We will need better everywhere.

The Movement principles and practice teaches you to get better at better. It teaches it well.
I want you to embrace The Movement’s behaviours, because I want you to make your passions better.

As a race and society, we depend on each other, whether we like it or not.
Lets all get better so we all have better around us.
Because better breeds better.
And if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse.

At least, I think that’s a useful way to look at it.
Often magazines and other sources talk about “forcing” progress and other synonyms, but just think of the connotations of that.
Last time you were forced to do something, did you do it to the best of your abilities? Or just as little as possible/necessary?

When you train your body, you select movements because they relate to your goals.
You could look at this as selecting the words in your message to your body.
You choose those movements to say “THIS is what I want to get good at. The parts that relate to this movement are what I want to change.”

So that covers your side of the conversation, but this isn’t a monologue we’re talking about.

You have given your body stress, with your message. A stimulus to respond to.
And respond it shall. It has to. Any stress must be resolved; your body just tries to resolve stress without breaking.

Obviously, I want you to be “listening” to the response; that’s part of the foundation of Gym Movement Biofeedback protocols.
However, there is another consideration… is the message getting through clearly enough?

Consider this: I am speaking to you, right now, via this website. (Hi!)
If you are reading this, you are getting the message, at least at some level.

But what if I threw some Flash advertisements over it?
What if I was trying to sell you on unrelated crap in the middle of my article?
What if I go off on too much of a tangent? (Guilty, sometimes; mostly in articles I never end up posting!)

You might still get the message, but the point may not be as clear.

Try considering how this might relate to your training and health practices.

• Are you doing so many different movements that you never truly emphasise which ways need to get better the most and fastest? (CrossFit, anyone?)
• Are you training too densely, when what you want is fresh strength? Are you training strength too much, when what you need is endurance?
• Are you spending all day in positions that are bad for you, then trying to be “good” in the gym? Why aren’t you trying to improve the rest of the day?

Your body will action your message; it has to. “Adaptation has no off switch.”

But is your message loud and clear? Are you getting better at what you want to be better at or is the static of your life drowning out your signal?

• “Dig deep!”
• “Push through!”
• “Keep up the pace!”
• “Just go for it!”

These cues and similar are very commonplace; urging you to ignore difficulties and strains and simply push on, over and over, otherwise “how are you going to get better if you don’t work hard?!”

Funnily enough, deep down, most of us know the cues we should probably be hearing for better progress.
They are also commonplace… just not the same place.

• “Take your time.”
• “Slow down; get it right.”
• “You’re getting too worked up. Just calm down and try again.”
• “It’s not the end of the world; you can try it again later.”

These phrases, and others like them, are often spoken to children as they try to learn new skills; try to coordinate themselves in new ways to achieve new outcomes.

How different is gym work?
How different is anything we do, as adults?

Forget about the latest buzzwords.

Do you think that if your skill at something is of a higher quality, you might just achieve better outcomes faster?
Do you think you might learn better skills if you just slowed down sometimes?

Start slow, build skills, get fast; win.

That famous symbol (click for source)

I don’t remember a lot from my high school Physics class, but I do remember liking a lot of it.

I’m one of those people that when it comes to specific recollection can struggle quite a lot, but then has moments of perfect recall for no apparent reason. So despite my enjoyment, much of the field of physics is completely forgotten to me.

For people in my scenario, some of the things you are most likely to remember are useful and simple formulae and constants.

For example (of the top of my head):

• pi = 3.14
• Force exerted by gravity on Earth (g) = 9.8 m/s^2
• Force = Mass X Acceleration
• Kinetic Energy = 0.5(mv^2)
• Potential Energy from gravity = mass X g X height from surface

And that’s about it, right now. Not so great, I’m sure I could come up with more, with time.

Something else though… everything here is wrong.
But at the same time… everything here is right.

How can that be?

“Context always matters.”

I think is was Adam T. Glass that specifically said this to me, but it was in a Twitter conversation with him and Frankie Faires, so it was almost a dual statement, really.

One thing about the nature of information is that how useful it is is highly contextual.
Something that may be a critical point at one time is useless noise at another.
“Go for the kidneys!” may be great advice during sparring, but it certainly doesn’t mean I need it being yelled at me 24/7, for instance.

Everyone knows that pi doesn’t really equal 3.14 (I should hope) but that it actually represents a seemingly never-ending number, merely rounded to a convenient 2 decimal places.
As such, that means that the summation is wrong; it isn’t 100% accurate.
That definitely does NOT make it useless, however, it makes it usable.

Think about it. If you wanted to calculate the circumference of a circle, when you only know its radius (a common use for pi), and you wanted a 100% accurate answer,you would likely never complete the task.

How could you? Why should you?

Everything’s a guess; some better, some worse.

As human beings, we aren’t really equipped to be accurate. If we were naturally equipped for perfect accuracy, why would we have invented electron microscopes? Or rulers, for that matter?

What we ARE good at is fast approximation to a useful degree.

• I may not know EXACTLY where a ball flying through the air will go, but I can guess well enough to catch it.
• I may not know EXACTLY how much force I need to move an object at a certain speed, but I can guess well enough to get close.
• I may not know the EXACT distance between 2 points, but I am equipped to take a stab at it!

Estimation needs assumptions to work. This is a blessing, as it allows us to operate at greater speed (instead of calculating pi for the rest of eternity), and a curse, as it makes accepting assumptions become very natural behaviour and this can become a Dangerous Thing.

What can you use?

There’s a good reason that certain material has stuck in my head better from high school; I would say that it was because these were things I could use.

It is very easy to get caught up fretting over what’s “best” or “right” and lose sight of what is actually usable and what isn’t.
Next time you find yourself caught up in the details of a matter, try taking a moment and asking yourself how much detail you need and how likely it is to change your actions.

Maybe if you’ve already got your 3.14 you should move forward for now?

As a relatively new parent (one daughter, just under 2 years old) I have had a fair amount of experience talking with others on similar topics and heard viewpoints like those included in Peter’s conversation many times. I find them very interesting.

Here’s another concept I find very interesting: cognitive dissonance.
Hit up this Wiki-link, read the first paragraph (minimum), then hear me out.

How does that relate? Here’s how I think it does:

• People want to believe they do what they can to make their kid happy.
• People want to believe they do what they can to make their kid healthy.
• People want to believe that when they act contrary to that it is “not their fault”.
• People love studies that take the blame off them for their actions.

So far, honestly, not that much conflict… but wait…

• People believe that fast food is unhealthy. (Surprise, they’re (mostly) right!)
• People believe that big corporations are “all about the bottom line”. (Necessary for capitalist system, comrade!)
• People believe that they are “above” corporate brainwashing.
• People believe that giving in to fast food marketing “can’t do much harm”.

Uh oh, this is getting a little harder to sustain…

Juggling all these elements and conflicts can get stressful, just as the Wikipedia paragraph states.
So many parents simply buckle under the load, cop out with a phrase like “what harm can it really do?” (even in the face of rising obesity-linked disease at epidemic levels) and buy the damn fast food.
The sad fact is that these stressed parents are choosing what THEY PERCEIVE as the “best” option; the lowest cost option to both them and child.

Here are a few more sad facts though:

• Directing your child away from fast food probably should not be so distressing. How often do you practice turning your child toward better choices? Are you that inexperienced at it that a little conflict is terrifying? We get better at what we do…
• The only marketing that can affect someone (your child) is the marketing they see/encounter.
• The parent has probably succumbed to fast food marketing just as much as the child.

Most people tend to be quite ignorant regarding marketing.

I know my level of awareness has increased vastly since I took an interest in it about 2 years ago (notice the timing regarding the age of my child… no coincidence).
I believe that if you do not study something and you do not attempt to recognise its patterns and movements, you are unlikely to be able to control its influence to any useful degree.
When that thing is something scientifically proven to affect your decisions and those affecting your child’s desires and wellbeing… that is A Very Bad Thing.

Think of it like deadlifting.

How much marketing you are exposed to is the weight on the bar.
Failing the lift is succumbing to marketing’s message.
Choosing not to lift is ignoring marketing. It works for now, but it doesn’t get you stronger or help you for next time.
Achieving the lift is not IGNORING marketing, but controlling its influence; showing it who is boss!

Can’t lift it right now?

Drop weight (reduce marketing/brand exposure).
Get stronger! How? Train! Learn, practice, apply!
Make a weight that felt hard feel easy and heavier weight will begin to shift, right?

Marketing is everywhere, sure. Every time you have an argument, you’re marketing an idea to another.
But for everyone’s sake and for that of their children, become a savvy consumer and learn to lift some damn weight.

I’m pretty sure I heard that on an episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit one time. An awesome series, by the way, but not the point of this article.

I was rambling on Facebook today and talking about workout music. I had just put on the Mortal Kombat Annihilation sound track CD.

Remember that film? The second 90s live action Mortal Kombat movie? Naturally, it wasn’t long before someone had to go and point out how terrible it was.

My response:

“So true. Soundtrack may be sweet, but the movie was dreadful.
I gotta say though… Cyborg Smoke vs. Liu Kang… awesome.”

That got me thinking. Time for a YouTube search…

Okay, I think we can agree that that was NOT “awesome”.

Too often in day to day life (and in the gym, of course!) we trust recollection and nostalgia far too much to move forward with accurate predictions.

Sometimes it’s trivial and sometimes it’s not, but perhaps a little extra checking of the facts now and then would be useful, huh?

At least I’ll never get caught telling someone “Hey, check out this awesome fight scene from MK2…” and looking foolish… again.

This kid is on to it.

Where do you draw a line in the sand?

Every day, we get pressure and demands on our time. It’s generally accepted that the nations where people are wealthy in money have issue with being “time-poor”.

We have pressure to perform at work, perform at home, perform at exercise and perform morally/ethically.
For every inch we get, we are told to “give back”.

In life, as in exercise, I am a BIG fan of “resistance”.

Consider this as a concept:

Your “internal resistance” is the only thing standing between your autonomy and your subjugated compliance.
How do you organise your internal resistance training? How do you track it?

I’m not calling this a “fact”. (I hesitate to call anything “fact”, you may have noticed.)
I have found it a useful concept however, in making myself a more effective person.
I have found it useful in moving toward MY most valued goals, rather than those of other people.

Pencils down, please…

Now, I’m not saying you have to formally track your internal resistance training. I’m not saying “don’t”, though. Go for your life, if you want to.

What I would like you to consider is looking long and hard at your life and trying to ascertain your TRUE life goals.

What do YOU want to be like?
What do YOU want to achieve?
What would YOU lament missing out on?

Think about how other people’s actions and influence can push you in other directions; sometimes from blurring your idea of what your goals “should” be.
Now create some “barriers” in your thoughts. Draw some lines in the sand.

People will always make you better or worse. But choose a point and try saying “no further”.
It may start off feeling hard, but (just like lifting weights) you’ll be amazed how quickly that hard can become easy.