Chapter 9: Progressive - The Practice of Natural Movement

“We are either progressing or retrograding all the while; there is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life.”

 

—James Freeman Clarke

 

Natural Movement is progressive in the sense that acquisition of movement adaptability is a relatively slow process and so is the development of physiological adaptations. Rushing the process or skipping stages only leads to issues down the road. The Progressive principle is a direct extension of principle 7, “Adaptable.”

The Progressive principle is also tied to principle 1, “Evolutionary.” Dinosaurs didn’t turn into much smaller feathery birds in a matter of centuries, and we didn’t evolve from hominids into Homo sapiens in just a few millennia. The evolution took place over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. Evolution is about adaptability, and adaptability relies on progressiveness.

Similarly, an individual doesn’t acquire the full scope of his or her Natural Movement abilities overnight; it doesn’t even happen in a matter of weeks or months. No one starts their Natural Movement journey from scratch, however; although we are born with tremendous instinct and evolutionary drive for movement, a newborn baby still has zero locomotion ability. Even days after birth, we can’t crawl, let alone stand, run, or jump, because we don’t have the motor skills or the strength to do so. Acquiring these skills follows progressions—known as developmental stages—over the course of several years. Reaching physical or locomotive autonomy and getting to the level at which adults of the species can move takes much more time for the young human animal than in most other species.

Even by the time of reaching a walking stage, a young human is still not fully physically developed. It takes years for a human body to reach a “grown-up” stage as far as both motor-skill (natural movement) aptitudes and physiological levels are concerned—as long as natural physical development is not significantly impaired or even totally stopped by social conventions or lifestyle (which is unfortunately very common in today’s world).

Regressive Lifestyle

 

The Adaptable and Environmental principles explain that both the environmental variables that surround us and our conscious or unconscious physical behaviors shape our genetic expression at a cellular level, which affects how we feel, perform, and look. Although in some cases you can immediately notice changes, most deterioration goes unnoticed because it takes place very slowly. Except in the rare cases of an accident or a disease, nobody becomes physically weak and dysfunctional overnight. It is a process that can take place over the course of several months, years, or even several decades. How we move, sit, or stand comprises a biomechanical environment where the interaction of our body weight and gravity loads, stresses, and affects all our body tissues to some degree.

Kids who move a lot often have wear and tear in their socks and also in the knee and elbow areas of their clothes because they use those body parts to support themselves when they move. Biomechanically speaking, through diverse and frequent movements and the interaction of body weight with gravity and the environment, children load those areas (as well as all the body segments involved in the movements), which helps them grow and get stronger.

Conversely, if a person was to stay in bed without moving at all for days, there would be no mechanical interaction of their body weight with gravity; in the absence of loading the bones in the way needed to keep them strong, loss of both muscle and bone density would ensue. If a person sits and stands with a rounded back for years, such chronic physical behavior and biomechanical environment will literally shape that person’s spine to make it permanently rounded. Of course, such structural change is not benign, and it can cause great discomfort and pain. If standing and sitting a certain way for prolonged periods of time can permanently change the shape of our spines, what other changes—most of which are not even visible—might progressively take place in our bodies and cause deleterious physical and physiological alterations without our awareness?

The point is that it’s not just what we intentionally do to stay healthy or get fitter that matters; the bulk of our movement and physical behavior when we’re not really paying attention to it also has a progressive physical and physiological effect.

Fortunately, we can change and improve our overall habits, behaviors, and environments, which leads to progressively restoring our functions and enhancing them.

The lack of Natural Movement is foremost a disuse issue. We become physically less strong and functional because we have ceased to use our bodies the way they are evolutionarily supposed to be used. Sitting all day and walking over short distances is nowhere near what our physiology expects. The variability of movement patterns and environmental variables is missing from our modern lifestyles; the intensity, duration, and frequency of movement has been reduced to being not biologically substantial enough for us to remain optimally functional and healthy. More movement alone might be insufficient to correct the problem because from consistent disuse ensues misuse or poor, inefficient movement patterns.

By losing a certain degree of function because of chronic physical idleness, we become less adept at movement variability and adaptability. In short, we become inefficient at movement whenever we do move. Standing, walking, and even breathing become dysfunctional. We have a body for all function, and a loss of function negatively effects everything we do physically. As a result, our avoidance and sometimes fear of movement increases as if movement is something unhealthy—something that is bad for our joints, for instance. But if crawling is supposed to be bad for our wrists, jumping bad for our knees, and throwing bad for our shoulders, then is thinking bad for our brains? Probably too much negative or stressful thinking is, but no one would ever advise you that all thinking is unhealthy. By the same token, too much movement, inefficient movement, or movement that’s too intense is not good for us when we normally spend most of our time physically idle, but we shouldn’t go to extremes and avoid all movement.

We have a modern cultural issue with obsessive comfort and safety. Our comfort zone is both shrinkable and expandable, depending on our lifestyle and mindset choices. The less frequently you challenge your comfort zone, the more it shrinks. The smaller it gets, the more uncomfortable you become. The more comfort we seek from external conveniences, the less comfort we create from internal abilities. In that sense, spending a lot of time sitting and moving as little as possible can certainly be convenient, but it progressively shrinks your body functions and movement comfort zone. The less you move, the less conditioned you get, which means you’re more at risk for injury, which increases your fear of movement and leads you to move less—and the cycle continues. Constant comfort eventually becomes uncomfortable and stressful.

Change is only possible through movement.”

—Aldous Huxley

 

By indulging yourself by staying physically inactive every day of your life, you basically establish a slow process of weakening yourself. Interestingly, though chronic physical idleness is a health-damaging habit, we don’t see it as a “temptation” the same way we view binging on sugary foods or alcohol. However, we do “binge” on prolonged periods of physical inactivity, and we have little to no awareness that it contributes to the kind of self-transformation we do not want.

Does it matter that such inactivity is considered “normal” because it’s how most people live their lives? In this case, normalcy matters less than whether the habit is healthy and beneficial. Normalcy can be a silent, invisible killer, and constant comfort is one of its most common weapons.

 

Self-Brutalizers

 

When many people realize they’re in a state of physical neglect and weakness, they often seek body salvation through radical programs. Although it’s commendable that people make the realization and follow-up resolutions, the approach they take to make improvements often is not; from a fitness perspective, long-term neglecters often become short-term brutalizers. It’s funny how people, after many years of physical neglect, think they can brutalize their body back to fitness in a matter of weeks.

It is as if people subconsciously want to punish themselves for their years of physical inactivity—as if they think the adverse health effects of decades of physical abandon or idleness could be fully reversed in a matter of weeks or months. If you have neglected your body for many years, you have no choice but to embrace the idea that transitioning back into a fully functional body is going to be a slow process.

We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”

—Carlos Castaneda

 

If you can’t perform basic movements efficiently at a low level of intensity and if your most fundamental movement patterns are mediocre, what will happen when you suddenly attempt a high volume of complex movements at high levels of intensity? If your lifestyle progressively breeds a dysfunctional body and movement patterns, then the journey to reclaiming health, movement competency, and fitness should start with movement quality and frequency rather than movement quantity and intensity. People who struggle with basic moves yet push themselves to raise the bar higher are driven by either ignorance, ego, or both.

From a biological perspective of physiological transformation, there is no shortcut or quick fix; there’s no instant reward. There’s only a process that takes time, and that concept is easily ignored within our culture of immediacy and instant gratification.

Many people have bought into the idea of “no pain, no gain,” but the reality is that when you don’t carefully approach a return to good health and fitness, you can instead suffer a LOT of pain and a huge loss. When you ignore the Progressive principle, as well as a number of body signals that are telling you to slow down, and you instead inflict enormous amounts of physical stress on a body that isn’t prepared to handle it, you are doing yourself a disservice. Instead of making any progress, you might get seriously injured and suffer great pain for a long time. What doesn’t kill you does not necessarily make you stronger; it can also make you weaker. We see lots of “before and after” photos and success stories that promote fitness programs, but we rarely hear about the “failure stories” in which people end up with sometimes permanent injuries that can result in great financial cost and loss of quality of life.

Impatience never commanded success.”

—Edwin H. Chapin

 

Legions of fitness and sports aficionados who have hurt themselves by doing too much too soon (and doing it inefficiently) without ever fully recovering will testify to the wisdom of progressing carefully. Strength, fitness, and health are not static conditions; they are components of a process that we must constantly and consistently pursue.

“Physical performance” isn’t just for elite-level athletes or people who participate in sports. Performance is how anyone handles their day-to-day physical movements and tasks. Most of us do not need to train like elite athletes, even when the summer vacation is getting closer and we are in a rush to see quick, visible results. We simply need to move and to get back to natural movement fundamentals with variability, frequency, and consistency before we can progress toward greater levels of volume, intensity, or complexity. Nurturing health and fitness is a lifetime biological duty, and we need to approach it the smart way, which includes having humility and patience.

Progressions

 

The Adaptable principle explains that adaptation is specific to the type of demand. For that reason, a sprinter, a marathoner, and a long-distance trail runner don’t train and perform the same way even though they all are runners. The bones and muscles of the dominant arm of a baseball pitcher are stronger than the opposite arm. Practicing complex skills, such as playing an instrument, will literally modify the structure of the brain related to that practice. The body and brain must adapt by structurally altering themselves to become better at the tasks they are consistently asked to do.

When you know that modifications take place progressively, it makes sense to make sure that the inputs necessary to trigger such adaptations also are progressive to ensure the best adaptation possible and to avoid injury. We learn early that exposing our skin to the hot summer sun for hours right after having been deprived of sun and nakedness for a whole winter will result in a severe sunburn, so we start with a few minutes of sun and stay outside a little longer every day. Moving your body at greater levels of intensity, volume, and frequency requires the same deliberate progression.

It might help to think of your body as more like a garden than a factory.”

—Matt Perryman

 

The Progression principle is embedded in the Adaptable principle because you cannot brutally adapt to anything. Dosage matters a lot for the effectiveness of the process both in the short term and for the long run. The right dose, whether of sun or movement, should be incrementally increased regularly while being consistently administered. Transformation doesn’t happen with a single event; it requires a succession of efforts and constant attention that rewards the dedicated. It’s a process that involves countless micro-progressions, micro-gains, and even “micro-epiphanies.”

Let’s look at how children acquire a new skill. They go through an organic progression as they learn to move better and more skillfully through difficult movement patterns. For example, do children start doing Pull-Ups right away? Not at all. They start by hanging; they hang often, and they hang for longer and longer periods of time. They also use diverse movements, such as hanging and swinging. Eventually they start pulling themselves up as they climb so they’re also using their legs. That’s how they build their grip strength, upper-body strength, and coordination in climbing (or “brachiating”). Children don’t rush as if Pull-Ups are the be-all and end-all of upper-body strength and fitness or because Pull-Ups are an essential “functional movement.” A Pull-Up is just one of many climbing movement patterns. If children don’t rush to do a Pull-Up, neither should adults, especially as we usually have proportionally less strength than children and have often lost a lot of our childhood physical condition.

Adults should restore the function they have lost (or maybe have never developed in the first place) before they try to enhance it. Regardless of the specific Natural Movement skill, you need to use the same progressive approach: First you address the integrity and efficiency of basic movement patterns and then you work on acquiring new or more challenging versions of the same types of movements.

All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.”

—Ellen Glasgow

 

If you respect this principle of progressiveness, you won’t need “regressions,” or easier versions of a movement or exercise you realize is too difficult for you, because you will start with first things first and gradually increase the challenge from there. In other words, knowing that a particular type of movement is scalable in difficulty is good, but respecting objective, adequate progressions to achieve that movement is what makes such scalability work.

Volume, Intensity, Complexity

 

Of course, progressive difficulty in movement complexity is not the only important aspect of progressions. Any given technique or movement pattern can be done in more challenging ways without the pattern being (significantly) modified. Typically, greater intensity and volume are the obvious variables that make the practice of a particular movement more challenging.

Volume progression is fairly evident: Either repetition (the number of times you repeat a movement in a row or within a session) increases or duration (the length of time during which you perform the movement) increases. Intensity progression relates to the speed at which you perform the movement, but it also can involve the distance, height, or depth at which you perform the movement. For instance, in the case of a jump, the weight that you are manipulating (lifting, carrying, throwing, or catching) as well as the impact you generate (in striking, punching, and kicking) affects the intensity.

Yet complexity, namely environmental complexity, is an aspect of progression that is widely overlooked. In principle 8, “Environmental,” I have already shared some insights explaining why that is so. Again, there is more to your running capability than only increasing speed or duration. In this case, running on uneven terrains that gradually become more difficult is a form of progression. Increasingly contextual complexity cannot be overlooked as a progression. Increasing the number of repetitions of a given jump is a progress in volume; increasing the distance cleared is a progress in intensity; increasing the height, difficulty of take-off, and landing surfaces is an increase in complexity. An increase in environmental complexity can challenge both your body and your mind because it demands mental composure to remain in control of your movement efficiency in the presence of apprehension or even risk.

Daring to perform a movement once and succeeding is great, but developing a lasting ability is much greater. Just as you must progressively acquire physical prowess, self-confidence and self-control are capital elements of real-world physical capability you must develop gradually. Managing fear, which is an advanced aspect of the mental side of Natural Movement performance, is a matter of progression in environmental complexity. Just as consistent practice of Natural Movement will elevate your energy levels, facing fears and overcoming them frequently—yet safely—is one of the most natural and potent remedies to anxiety. Indeed, our own limitations are often found not in our bodies but in our minds.

Conversely, respecting such progressions in environmental complexity can be an exercise in practical humility for those who are reckless. You have one body and one life; one mistake can jeopardize what you are trying to achieve. By being realistic and not taking unnecessary risks unless you are really in control, you can learn to overcome misplaced confidence.

Regardless of the aspect of progression you are looking at—volume, intensity, or frequency—progressions must be well thought out. Though principle 10, “Efficient,” emphasizes the crucial importance of efficient movement and principle 11, “Mindful,” emphasizes how attention matters in performing efficient movement patterns, both efficiency and mindfulness are hard to ensure when levels of difficulty are overwhelming—in other words, when progressions are not respected. You should regularly make incremental increases in the level of challenge while you also ensure that you’re maintaining consistency in movement efficiency.

NOTE

 

This chapter explains the philosophy of the Progressive principle. The “how-to” of progression is described in Part 3, “Practice Efficiency Principles.” The science or knowledge behind effective progressions relies on programming. Such programming can be done either intuitively or rather meticulously and rationally.

 

Recovery

 

Recovery, which is the amount of rest your body needs to effectively achieve the physiological adaptations triggered by the input (practice), is an integral part of progression. This process does not solely take place in the body in terms of strength or energy system; it also occurs in the brain in terms of improved motor control.

Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.”

—Richard L. Evans

 

You may leave a session feeling frustrated because you have not achieved the level of technique you were aiming for. What you don’t realize is that even suboptimal repetitions have provided the necessary input for your central nervous system to improve your movement patterns after the session is over. You might be surprised to notice an immediate improvement during your next session. Progression took place while you were busy doing something else.

Depending on the type of adaptation—physiological or neural—a certain amount of rest is necessary, or even mandatory. Nutrition and overall lifestyle is also part of recovery. If you don’t respect recovery, you’re not respecting progression because effective adaptations are being hindered. For instance, frequency in the practice of movement patterns/technique may be very beneficial and boost progress, whereas too much frequency in training for metabolic conditioning can wreck your body. Daily high-intensity training is not sustainable because it is hormonally disruptive. Although it might look like you are “overtraining,” in actuality you might simply lack enough time to recover properly.

Natural Movement practice is a process that enables the restoration of lost function, the activation of function that went dormant, the enhancement of existing function, and the development of potential function that was never developed in the first place. The word function could be easily replaced by skill, strength, or conditioning. It doesn’t matter at what stage of this process you find yourself. As I mentioned in principle 3, “Universal,” there aren’t natural movements for elite athletes and other movements for “common” people; there’s only day-to-day movements that belong to anyone. What separates the levels of practice is not the nature of the patterns practice but the level of difficulty that you can afford in relation to your current physical state or level. Practice should never be too easy or too hard.

Just like strength, physical capability isn’t a state; it’s a process that is, by nature, progressive. If we quit nurturing the process, we become weak and inept; if we engage in, nurture, and maintain the process, we become and remain strong and capable. If we think of capability as a state instead of as a process, we can become disheartened. We should let go of prerequisites for worthiness and embrace the process instead, regardless of what our personal starting points are. If we can see our physical state of capability as an ongoing process, then all we have to do is to understand the necessity for consistent, continuous practice. The level of practice we can afford today might not be as high as what we could afford years ago if we went through a period of physical inactivity, but the level of practice we will be able to afford in the future is higher than what it is today if we consistently practice and continuously increase the level of difficulty.

It is not fair to treat people as if they are finished beings. Everyone is always becoming and unbecoming.”

—Kathleen Winter

 

I have seen many people regarded as “fit” by conventional standards and external appearance become clumsy beginners when starting Natural Movement practice. Similarly, the completely out-of-shape person who begins and struggles with the most fundamental moves and lowest levels of volume, intensity, or complexity may not have less merit than those who can rapidly perform more difficult movements. This is because level of difficulty and level of challenge are not the same thing. If a trained or gifted person can perform a rather difficult movement easily, that person isn’t challenged. The untrained person who is struggling with a normally easy movement, on the other hand, is greatly challenged. If the latter puts their heart and effort in the movement despite the difficulty, that person has more merit than the individual who can easily perform more difficult movements but is not pushing him- or herself with an even greater level of difficulty. If simply hanging from a horizontal bar for a few seconds represents a great challenge to you and requires great courage and willpower from you, who is to say that you are not training really hard, maybe even harder than more advanced practitioners?

Two of the most important psychological aspects of practice are humility with regard to your actual physical state and ability and patience with regard to how much and how fast you should progress in terms of increasing volume, intensity, or complexity. These qualities are as important as the necessary willpower and self-discipline that are required to ensure progress. You also should have pride for the efforts that you are able to produce and the commitment that you are able to display. When you’re committed to a long-term strategy, every step forward is part of a process, and with the right mindset you can feel like you’re receiving instant gratification.

NOTE

 

I remember once having to stay several days in bed in a hospital because I was recovering from malaria. Upon coming home, I was so out of shape and my levels of strength were so low that the amount of willpower it took to achieve a Deadlift of 40 pounds was tremendous. This personal experience reminded me of something I had always believed, which is that level of effort and level of performance aren’t the same, and that merit has more to do with the former than the latter.

 

Consistency

 

There is no failure except in no longer trying.”

—Elbert Hubbard

 

Whereas consistency does not necessarily imply progression, progression demands consistency. The path to progression—in movement efficiency or physiological adaptation—demands consistency, and the path to consistency demands commitment. There’s no way around it. A lot of people become discouraged after making several short-lived attempts to remedy their issues, be it in terms of health or physical condition. They begin to think that they have literally tried everything, but they don’t realize that it is their lack of commitment that prevents any improvement from progressing (or even happening in the first place). It’s a product of the modern mindset to expect fast and dramatic results with little personal participation. People are not necessarily reluctant to engage in temporary change or effort; they mostly are resistant to consistency and commitment, except where their own ingrained habits and routines are concerned. Habits and routines can be both good or bad, and you must get rid of the bad ones before they harm you. Reserve your efforts toward consistency for the beneficial changes so that they become habits.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

—Aristotle

 

You can design yourself consciously and continuously to progressively become who you choose to be. To evolve in the direction you choose, you must be willing to step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself. Constant comfort paradoxically becomes uncomfortable. You can only expand your comfort zone by challenging it. Habits, routines, and other lifestyle patterns that have ceased to evolve and challenge you are sterile, and they foster stagnation.

How do you know that you’re out of your comfort zone? Well, if you don’t know, or if you’re not sure, you clearly are not out of it yet. The more comfortably numb life gets, the more stressful it is because your comfort zone becomes smaller and smaller. The strategy to expand your comfort zone is pretty simple: challenge your comfort zone frequently so you can expand it steadily. In other words, once you become comfortable with a movement, increase the volume, complexity, or intensity so that the movement becomes uncomfortable for a while. Eventually, you’ll be comfortable with that new level, which means it’s time to again make things uncomfortable.

   

Not having the best genetics is not an excuse for having the worst lifestyle or a reason to indulge yourself with chronic physical laziness. Progress requires undertaking a lifetime pursuit of change, and the only deadline is the deadline we all have to face at the end of our lives; simply put, you are in no rush. Do you want to have short-lived New Year resolutions or a single lifetime resolution that follows a consistently progressive path?

At first, your body may not have as much skill and strength as you’d like, but with lots of strength from the heart and mind, the willingness to make achievements, consistency, commitment, and some mental effort for when things get a bit tougher, skill, body strength, and energy will eventually follow. We are shaped by anything we do, how we do it, and how often we do it, whether it shows or not—and eventually it always shows. Any time you spend weakening your weaknesses is time you spend strengthening your strengths. Tomorrow’s physical capability and health depends on what you choose to do today.