Chapter 10: Efficient - The Practice of Natural Movement

“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”

 

—Lou Holtz

 

“Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”

 

—Jim Rohn

 

I explain in the Evolutionary, Instinctual, and Universal principles that everyone possesses fundamental, human, innate movement aptitudes. Anyone can effectively crawl, walk, run, jump, balance, lift, and carry—to some extent at least. But can everyone perform such movements skillfully? Even if we can effectively do what is natural to us, do we always do it efficiently?

The answer is in the difference between an aptitude and a skill. An aptitude is a natural ability or tendency to do something. It’s spontaneous and subconscious, but it can be really basic, rough, and not at all skillful. When we have movement aptitude, we perform effective movements regardless of efficiency; in other words, it’s possible to be “inefficiently effective.” Inefficient effectiveness isn’t a failure at achieving the result we seek, but it is failure at achieving success at the highest level we could potentially achieve. A skill, on the other hand, is the ability to do something well; it’s an advanced aptitude or expertise. Efficiency turns aptitudes into skills, whereas skills make movements efficient. Whereas effectiveness is a basic form of success, efficiency is an optimum form of success.

When we move we generate what experts call “kinetic energy”—the energy of our own motion. Obviously, producing effective Natural Movement demands some work and comes at a cost. However, we don’t want to move just for the sake of moving; we move with an intention and for a practical purpose, and we expect a return on the kinetic energy we invest. Is that energy optimally employed and entirely transferred to producing that outcome we seek, or is it dispersed to some extent? The more optimally it is directed and the more efficient you are, the more successful you are at safely performing a practical physical task with economy. Conversely, if your movement is mediocre—that is, less efficient—you are less successful at how you perform, which means you use more energy than needed and can potentially injure yourself. In fact, by being less efficient, attempts to perform physical actions could ultimately become totally ineffective, in which case energy is entirely wasted.

Because we are wired to move efficiently, even when we can’t explain what motivates us to move that way, humans have an innate ability to notice efficient movement in others the same way they can immediately spot clumsiness. The three primary and highly desirable outcomes we can expect from efficiency are improved performance, energy conservation, and increased safety. In simple words, on top of having the ability to physically achieve more, you achieve better results by both conserving your energy and maintaining your physical integrity. Efficiency enables the minimum amount of energy to be used for a given task, which from a vital perspective of life preservation is critical.

 

Efficiency is to the whole body in movement what dexterity is to how you use your fingers, hands, and wrists in hand manipulation, such as when you play an instrument. You can tell when you’re hearing an instrumental virtuoso playing music because the efficiency is evident in how that person plays. In the same way, you can see the efficiency of a movement virtuoso. The difference between melody and cacophony or between movement control and random gesticulation is found in the difference between efficiency and inefficiency. Mastery is skillful, and skillfulness is efficient.

I’m pragmatic. I like efficiency. I want to read what’s in front of me and not have my hands tied.”

—Susan Brooks

 

The importance of efficiency cannot be taken lightly, and it helps to look at the consequences of inefficiency to understand its importance. The minor aspects of inefficiency may seem relatively benign, especially in environmentally simplified gym settings where movements are performed one repetition at a time. But in the real world, movements are always part of a continuum, and an inefficiency in performing a given movement may have consequences beyond the movement itself because it can lead to the inability to effectively transition to the next movement, lost efficiency in the next movement, or even failure of the next movement. Depending on the context, an ineffective transition could cause you a delay or a momentary loss of attention that would result in missing an important opportunity, or it could cause you to not detect a threat. Even worse, it could cause you to get injured, which can have dramatic consequences.

DEFINING EFFICIENCY

 

The Efficiency principle is often misunderstood as if a minimal amount of energy should be used, but there is a significant difference between “minimal” and “minimum.”

If we want to use a minimal amount of energy then only movements that require very little strength or energy should be practiced. The reality is that efficiency implies that you should use a minimum amount of energy regardless of the level of intensity required to perform the movement.

Indeed, you can waste precious energy even when you’re performing basic movements that require minimal amounts of energy; you might expend little energy but still have expended more than you should have. Conversely, you might expend significant amounts of energy while performing a high-intensity physical task yet only be using the minimum amount of energy required. Inefficient movement forces you to waste energy even when you’re performing apparently easy movements, whereas efficiency enables you to preserve energy by not consuming more energy than required while performing physically intense tasks. Regardless of the intensity required, efficiency is about preserving energy by using a minimum amount of it, not necessarily a minimal amount of it; simply put, don’t use more energy than you need, whether a physical action demands little energy or a lot of it.

This creates an apparent paradox when training metabolic conditioning (which is high-intensity movement aimed at improving energy systems) by the MovNat method: Expend the greatest amount of energy possible—within a given amount of time—while using the minimum amount of energy possible. While it may sound like it, this isn’t a contradictory statement at all. Intensity implies that you must use high amounts of energy; efficiency implies that you must use minimum amounts of energy. “High-energy” expenditure should not imply “unnecessary waste of energy,” whereas “energy-efficient” practice does not necessarily equal “minimal-energy” expenditure. Use exactly the amounts of energy needed to perform effectively—no more, no less. Seeking movement efficiency is a form of seeking comfort and finding the easiest way possible to do something even when intensity is involved; it requires some attention and effort.

 

Why a Method Is Necessary

 

Although we commonly associate the word natural with the word spontaneous, we can’t assume that anything that’s spontaneous is necessarily efficient. This is true for many aspects of who we are and what we do, and it certainly applies to how we move. There’s a difference between an innate aptitude and an acquired skill, and even a movement that feels “natural” isn’t equivalent to an efficient movement. The movement might be a bad habit you simply have gotten used to, so now it feels “intuitive” and even comfortable. We always default to our habitual patterns regardless of how efficient they are. Efficiency is not subjective, and it’s more than a mere sensation. It’s an outcome that can be felt by the person doing the movement, but it also can be observed, compared, verified, and, in some respects, measured by someone else.

Although Natural Movement is an innate, instinctual physical behavior, it also requires practice to make efficiency in Natural Movement second nature. We need to nurture our nature to unleash our full potential.

We are certainly all born with innate Natural Movement aptitudes and an instinct to get more efficient at any of those movements we were originally meant to do consistently. For instance, adults are able to stand seemingly effortlessly, whereas for toddlers standing is at first difficult and energy-inefficient.

But there is a problem: Years (decades even) of neglect of our physical abilities because of disuse and misuse has turned us into “zoo-humans.” In the absence of physical and movement behaviors that match the behaviors of our ancestors, turning innate abilities into second-nature skills has become a real challenge. While Natural Movement originally became efficient in every individual after sufficient time of spontaneous, necessary, or even intentional practice, in modern times efficiency is not guaranteed at all. I have observed time and time again that the way untrained modern humans spontaneously perform even some of the simplest natural movements is rarely efficient, compared to the same movements performed by populations who use them daily in so-called “undeveloped” countries.

It is easy to dismiss the necessity for having a method of learning or teaching what is natural because of the romantic idea that something that’s natural cannot be taught or learned. However, as I stated earlier, the reality is that what is natural is not necessarily efficient. For example, is there anything more natural than breathing? Still most modern people would tremendously benefit from relearning the proper breathing pattern they once used as children. If this is true for breathing, is it unreasonable to consider that we can also learn efficiency in every skill that is part of Natural Movement?

Generally speaking, if you control matter more precisely, you can get more efficiency out of any process.”

—Steve Jurvetson

 

Efficient movement is based on the knowledge of principles and techniques. Learning movement efficiency is a process that can be accelerated by consciously using a method. From the dawn of time, humans have developed technologies or methods for many needs and applications. To our ancestors, the purpose of developing methods of fire-making or hunting was to increase efficiency, and after they developed those methods they transmitted them through teaching and learning. A method is a systematic and effective way to learn, teach, and practice.

Natural Movement, natural processes, and phenomena are found in nature, but methods are not. There is no such thing as a “natural method.” You don’t stumble on a method while walking in nature. Methods are the product of a conscious, rational mind. Thanks to a method, you may realize what you never noticed in the first place and that you need to see, understand, and improve on. Methods help us make progress when instinct has been lost or reached its limits.

In an ideal world, there would be no need for a method or program for relearning what should be a universal birthright of Natural Movement mastery. Unfortunately, in today’s world, the reality is that millions of people need to reclaim their birthright of competent, adept Natural Movement. In fact, the health predicament that modern humanity is facing implies that most people need an overall reform of their lifestyle. To get started, they need to begin with the most basic natural movements. There is a common belief that efficiency only matters for the more complex movements, but it can make a significant difference in some of the seemingly simplest movements, such as standing up; a lack of quality in the most basic movements will negatively impact the efficiency of the more advanced, technical movements.

Exploring your instinctive movement patterns is only the beginning of your journey to movement competence. Although you don’t need a method, a coach, or scientific research to simply get outside and use your Natural Movement aptitudes, spontaneous skill is very rare. Given that most of us have been disconnected from our natural behaviors and many of our instincts have been repressed for so long, “trusting your instincts” might not give you the solutions you need.

If highly competent movers, such as wild animals that are born and raised to move naturally in nature “for a living,” sometimes miss and fail their own natural movements—slipping and falling, for instance—how could the untrained, deconditioned modern human assume that he or she doesn’t need to learn and practice Natural Movement efficiency? Will efficiency spontaneously happen because you’ve been inspired to climb a tree or have plunked yourself in nature? Maybe, but maybe not. You might make some progress, but you won’t go as fast as you could with a more thoughtful approach. Fundamental efficiency and excellence in movement stems from knowledgeable, mindful, methodical, consistent practice.

The worst-case scenario is that the total absence of guidance might result in foolish movement that causes injury or in uninspired exploration that ends in total discouragement. In most cases, instinct alone will take you only so far. Fortunately, the information I share with you in this book provides a lot of support in this regard. After you read through it, it may become part of your experience, of who you are, and of what you do “naturally,” and you may even forget or dismiss how much you learned from it. Nonetheless, this book contains all the information needed to turn basic aptitudes into actual Natural Movement skills.

Practice does not necessarily make perfect. Inefficient practice can make things worse, whereas efficient practice makes things better. Just as it requires consistency to develop greater levels of strength, power, or stamina, reaching higher levels of technique and efficiency demands consistency. Research has shown that in most fields, elite practitioners perform several thousand hours of “deliberate”—which means “mindful”—practice; extensive practice is a condition for acquiring expert performance in a particular skill or activity.

Clearly, in most cases efficiency isn’t innate and must be nurtured enough so it can be acquired. Yet we fortunately don’t need to spend thousands of hours training every skill we want to possess to become decently adept at them. In fact, efficient instruction and mindful practice can generate significantly greater efficiency sometimes in a matter of a few minutes. There have been many times when I have witnessed instant and impressive improvement after I have provided a student with a single verbal cue and the student has made just one attempt of the movement based on my instruction. Of course, not all progress is that fast and simple, but anyone can acquire very effective skills without having to spend even a tenth of the overall time needed to achieve an elite level of performance.

Remember: Volume practice alone is not a guarantee that you will improve if you don’t also have a sound method. You could spend tons of time or energy practicing without making any gains in efficiency if you don’t know what makes a given movement pattern efficient or if you aren’t at least attempting to increase your efficiency every time you perform the movement. Repetition is only the key to progress if you consistently repeat with the intention to improve. You can actually get worse with a high volume of mediocre repetitions while deeply ingraining bad patterns in the process. Unexamined movement is guaranteed to repeat itself to become the default pattern whether it’s an efficient movement or not; in most cases it isn’t, which condemns you to perpetuate poor quality, low-efficiency motion.

Technique Versus Strength and Conditioning

   

To augment your real-world physical capability, your priority is to both optimize your movement competency by making your skills as efficient as possible while also progressively increasing your work capacity (your strength and/or your endurance)*.

This is not an “either-or” proposition: Work capacity is not a substitute for movement competency, and technique does not make strength or conditioning optional. Depending on the complexity of the movement, the environment where it is performed, and the level of intensity imposed by the situation, the ratio of importance between technique and strength and conditioning may vary significantly, but neither aspect ever becomes irrelevant. Ever.

Strength and conditioning may to a degree facilitate the acquisition of movement competency, and greater movement skills dramatically improve how existing strength and conditioning are used for real-world performance. However, very few Natural Movement techniques or movements patterns require a person to have a level of strength greater than average to be performed. Anyone who is healthy can do the movements that are part of Natural Movement, such as crawling, walking, balancing, running, lifting, carrying, throwing, and catching. A person might not be able to do these movements at high intensity, but any healthy person is capable of some level of these movements. One can learn efficient lifting techniques with objects weighing no more than a few pounds. The only techniques that necessitate a certain level of strength—in the upper body—to be developed are particular climbing techniques that require hanging from the hands, and the strength required for these techniques is relatively easily gained through regressions of the techniques themselves. In other words, you don’t need to be sent to the gym to be “strong” or “conditioned” enough to start improving 99 percent of the whole scope of Natural Movement; you just start Natural Movement.

Those who care more for actual work capacity than looks are a minority among fitness aficionados, and among this minority the percentage of those who value technique and movement efficiency is even smaller. To feel prepared for the demands of the real world, most people still prioritize increasing their work capacity because they think work capacity is the be-all and end-all of physical preparedness. What these people don’t realize is that strength and conditioning support motor skills, but they don’t produce any motor skills. In other words, having great power and stamina won’t prevent you from drowning if you don’t know how to swim, keep you from falling off a narrow surface if you don’t know how to balance yourself, or help you defend yourself if you don’t know how to fight.

I knew I could control one thing, and that is my time and my hours and my effort and my efficiency.”

—Ryan Seacrest

 

People who focus exclusively on the measurable aspects of physical fitness, such as work capacity, are guaranteed significant deficiencies in their movement competency and therefore in their real-world physical capability. No extra amount of general strength and conditioning will ever compensate for a lack of motor-skill and movement adaptability. Although you also could say that knowledge of skills doesn’t compensate for lack of general strength and conditioning, there is a notable difference in the sense that some specific physiological adaptations—including greater strength and conditioning—take place when you practice movement skills contextually, which makes it possible to improve technique at the same time you’re getting stronger and gaining more endurance. Conversely, training for general physical preparedness generates great power and stamina, but you still need to learn all the techniques and skills that strength and stamina are supposed to support.

I’m not saying that supplemental strength and conditioning training isn’t beneficial or part of the MovNat method; I only mean that it may not be mandatory when learning the majority of the techniques and skills involved in Natural Movement. As you engage in Natural Movement training, competency comes before capacity, with some capacity developing symbiotically as competency is being trained and acquired, at least until the point where movement competency is established enough that capacity might become a greater focus. For instance, you can learn lifting techniques and keep fine-tuning your skill by using objects that are quite light, until it becomes obvious that you need heavier loads to develop more strength and power. That’s how it works for elite athletes, and it also makes sense for day-to-day fitness practitioners—that is, after they understand the priority value of movement competency.

Movement efficiency is not easy to quantify, but it is the primary level of performance you should be concerned about. We have been led to believe that only exercise that can be counted is productive, but so much of what really matters in movement performance can’t be counted or measured. Efficiency is one of those aspects that may be challenging to measure, but it matters tremendously.

“Going strong,” “training hard,” and “no pain, no gain” are mindsets that emphasize the grueling side of physical training, as if you aren’t doing any “real” and valuable work without sweating, grimacing, and having “the eye of the tiger.” When the quest for volume, speed, or number of calories burned prevails, it is in most cases accompanied by an absence of consideration for good form or technique. Even when people have knowledge of proper form and technique, many people are willing to compromise their form if the result is better numbers—as if movement efficiency was not a fundamental part of performance or only an optional aspect of it.

Using complex movements for the sake of increasing work capacity can be very detrimental if you overlook efficient movement, and there are important issues with such an approach. First, you might develop a false sense of physical capability because you might feel strong and ready, but you might not be entirely strong and ready. But principle 7, “Adaptable,” explains that adaptability stems from enough specificity in practice. Without adaptability, efficiency is immediately impaired. You may have the capacity to perform thirty Pull-Ups in a row when you’re hanging from a regular pull-up bar, but you might not be able to climb on top of a thick surface because hanging from a ledge is more challenging, you lack grip strength, and you do not know what movement techniques to employ to climb on top. You might believe that the power in your lower body enables you to sprint fast, but you haven’t factored in that a rugged, rocky terrain could make you significantly slow down or even stumble and fall because you are not skillful at running on such terrains at high speed.

Second, you might not detect vital body signals that indicate that an injury is imminent if you don’t reduce intensity or even completely stop what you’re doing. It is a mistake to think that it is okay to compromise your long-term physical integrity but not acceptable to compromise a short-term outcome.

Sadly, for most people, it is only after getting injured, dealing with the pain, going through rehabilitation, and taking time off from training that they will finally realize the mistake they made. Unfortunately, not everyone fully recovers from injuries; even some who recover and resume training are never able to reach previous levels of performance.

Last but not least, doing countless repetitions of an inefficient pattern imprints the incorrect form in your neuromuscular memory. Consequently, if you don’t consciously choose the most efficient pattern, your brain will reflexively, unconsciously choose the most frequently performed pattern. What that implies is that if you do twenty repetitions of a given technique to improve its efficiency and then immediately after use this exact same technique eighty times within a high-intensity workout while badly compromising its form for the sake of greater “metabolic conditioning” or “work capacity,” your brain memorizes the pattern that you have repeated the most regardless of efficiency. You thought that you got the best of both worlds with this 20/80 ratio, but you did not. You just taught your brain to make your body operate at high intensity with a poor movement. Not only are the chances of getting injured significantly greater, but you will also automatically revert to this mediocre pattern every time you increase the intensity at which you perform the technique. Mindless repetitions of mediocre movement lead only to long-term inefficiency.

NOTE

 

One thousand mindless repetitions of an inefficient movement pattern are a sign of both absolute commitment and ignorance.

 

There is a reason martial artists are obsessed with optimal form both at low and high intensity when they practice, and they never compromise their technique. It is because they know that in a real-world context where elements of fear or fatigue may be present, the aspects of performance that are likely to suffer are technique and efficiency. The same reasoning and martial art mindset should apply to all the Natural Movement skills that you practice.

It may be cliché, but our bones and muscles are our hardware, and our movement skills are our software. The most powerful hardware is useless without the right software. In other words, strength matters only if it is efficiently expressed—not brutally, mindlessly, vaguely, or inaccurately used. This applies to both the gym, the sports field, and the real world. Without a functional body and the techniques necessary to employ and develop power or energy at continuously higher levels of intensity, reaching plateaus and getting injured happen much sooner than they should. Your physiological potential is not the limit, but your efficiency is, and being inefficient can prevent you from ever reaching your full potential.

Become addicted to constant and never-ending self-improvement.”

—Anthony J. D’Angelo

 

There may be functional, physiological reasons why your movement isn’t efficient. In the case of a physical issue that is perceived as a threat to the body’s integrity, the central nervous system (CNS) has a healthy, conservative tendency of self-limiting movement. The CNS may use diverse strategies to restrain movement, including local tension to limit range of motion in joints or lower your ability to use strength to reduce the speed or power of your movement. Because most Natural Movement involves the whole body, pretty much any body part will find itself an inherent part of most movement patterns and negatively alter otherwise normal function. In this case, we usually talk about the “weak link” in a “kinetic chain.”

Learning new movements, or improving existing ones, becomes a real challenge, as the natural patterns are necessarily modified to compensate for the problem. Worse, inefficient patterns can be acquired and sometimes remain even long after the physical issues have healed or disappeared. While the issue of “nagging injury” and other functional limitations is far from being negligible in today’s populations, the primary obstacle to achieving movement efficiency lies in the mind and the perception that efficiency is optional or that work capacity is a satisfying substitute for deficiencies in motor skills.

NOTE

 

Moving more doesn’t always allow you to move better, but moving better always allows you to move more.

 

When movement proficiency becomes secondary or even accessory in your training, you become a mindless, inefficient fitness machine, with negative repercussion on your real-world effectiveness. Technique is absolutely not the replacement of strength or conditioning. Technique is the most efficient use of strength and conditioning. In that sense, “flow” in movement is not the elimination of resistance but the skill of optimally applying force and employing energy. The path of “least resistance” is movement efficiency. Going “strong” is easy; going smart is more challenging; going strong intelligently is obviously a greater challenge. There is no opposition between quality and quantity, between competency and capacity. “How can I do better?” is not a question that’s more important than “How can I do more?”; it’s simply a higher-priority one.

 

Movement Efficiency Is Not Enough

 

It’s not sufficient to just have movement efficiency; you also need practice efficiency. In this book, I explain both principles of movement and practice efficiency. How efficiently you practice isn’t limited to the efficiency of your movement. Similarly, how efficiently you apply your physical capability in the real world isn’t limited to technical proficiency. You could be running with amazing technique and speed, but if you’re running in the wrong direction or at the wrong time, you’re not being effective. Efficient movement doesn’t guarantee that you will be able to make the smartest decisions in real life if a situation occurs where your physical response is mandatory. You also need to have situational intelligence, which could also be called contextual proficiency or tactical proficiency.

To appraise situational efficiency and to determine the best course of action, one must consider the relationship between the contextual demands of the moment and the individual’s options in relation to their level of capability when the action takes place, with the “best” course of action not always being the ideal one. Contextual parameters might require that you temporarily modify the ideal execution of a technique, which can potentially reduce efficiency to some extent.

When you aim for perfection, you discover it’s a moving target.”

—George Fisher

 

A suboptimal execution is a necessary trade-off; some efficiency must be lost for the sake of adaptability and ensuring effectiveness. For example, you might have the option to run around an obstacle when you know that you are not able to pass it effectively or safely, which could mean it takes longer, but you can then avoid the risk of becoming injured. In other cases, you might be forced to attempt to clear the same obstacle because you do not have the luxury of time. Your level of capability determines whether you have options, what they are, and what decisions you should make about the movements you should employ, but ultimately you must make decisions based on the conditions of a context, which is a subject that goes beyond this book. For example, first responders, such as rescue teams, firefighters, paramedics, and police officers, are taught the most relevant, effective, efficient, or safe responses to situations—yet the acquisition of experience is a never-ending process. If those professionals struggle with their movement to begin with, they’re bound to struggle with the overall situation they are dealing with. Ultimately, movement efficiency, practice efficiency, and contextual efficiency are the three pillars of an overall spectrum of real-world capability.

You can never master the context where you physically and mentally operate; you can only learn to master how you will operate through it.

Flying like a bird without technology is impossible to humans other than in dreams or imagination. No technique will ever enable a human being to fly by his or her own physical means. Efficient movement and practice do not make the impossible possible, but they do enable an existing potential to become a reality. “Is there a better way?” is one of the most useful questions you can ask yourself in the pursuit of becoming more efficient.

Efficiency is indeed more than a principle; it is a mindset that makes us seek continuous improvement even when we are seemingly very adept at a given movement or physical task. This is a real paradox in the mainstream fitness industry: “Globofitness” makes basic, segmental movements—such as a biceps curl—look complex, but they’re not. Efficiency makes complex, adaptable, natural movements—such as a jump over a gap—look simple, but they’re not.

We have a culturally induced belief that because we start to physically decline past a certain age, it prevents us from making progress in anything new that we want to learn, but there’s no truth in that belief. Continuously optimizing your movement performance doesn’t depend on your age, level of health, or vitality; it depends on the strength and consistency of your intention. Does the quest for efficiency ever stop? Never, even if you simply maintain the efficiency you have previously acquired.

 

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”

—Vince Lombardi

 

How much efficiency should you aim for? Do you need to reach a world-class level? Of course not. If you learn and apply the principles and techniques covered in this book, you have covered 90 percent of what you need to know to perform most movements and techniques effectively, efficiently, and safely. You will have acquired the foundation of physical competence everyone needs to perform in practical situations of the real world. Here’s some other good news: It takes much longer to lose skills after you’ve acquired them than it takes to lose strength, and it is much faster to regain lost efficiency than it is to regain strength. If you want to become extremely adept at a skill or technique, though, you might need to seek the guidance of specialized experts—on top of spending thousands of hours practicing the skill.

Physically, experientially learning about movement efficiency helps you learn something about yourself. It is not the technique, the drill, the gym, the stopwatch, or the program that you are trying to master, right? You’re trying to master yourself. Movement perfection might be unattainable, but self-improvement is never out of reach. Improving your movement efficiency, even in the most minute way, is a way of improving yourself. It can be as simple and easy as paying attention to how you stand and breathe. Learning efficient movement can help reduce physical discomfort or pain when you move—and when you don’t move. It can add elegance to your movement. It can give you a greater sense of self-control, self-confidence, and self-worth.