the CRAIG VAN cast
Hey, I’m Craig. I've dedicated more than a decade to understanding the human spine. Now I’m sharing what I’ve learnt. Get started with my SPINE STRENGTH project - Part 1 is free. Subscribe and you’ll receive my work as I release it.
the CRAIG VAN cast
44 | How the spine & core dictate our movement, and their relationship with breathing & performance
What if you could unlock your body's fullest potential and transform the way you move, breathe and live? Join us in a captivating conversation that explores the deep connections between our spinal core, breathing and overall movement performance. We shed light on the often overlooked impacts of our daily habits, especially the effects of prolonged sitting and busy schedules, on our health and mobility. With actionable insights and practical advice, we empower you to reclaim control over your body, and enhance your movement performance.
In this enriching episode, we unravel the enigma of the spine's intricate relationship with our core muscles and their combined role in our movement performance. We explain how the stability of the spine unlocks movement options for our limbs, and how inadequate spinal alignment can limit your mobility. We also dive into the transformative power of breathing and its synergistic connection with our core. Learn how coordinating these elements can not only enhance your body's efficiency but also make movement a more enjoyable and fulfilling experience.
Finally, we explore the practical ways to counteract the impact of sedentary lifestyles on our bodily development. Starting with simple, isolated movements, we guide you on a journey to gradually build more complex patterns and robust mobility. We introduce you to powerful protocols like Citrobeco and Kinetic Keystone Protocol, designed to rewire your body's coordination between the spinal cord and breathing. Regardless of where you are in your movement journey, this episode equips you with the tools and knowledge to become a more confident and capable mover. So, tune in, open your mind, and embrace the transformation!
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Moving on to the next reason why kinetic keystone should be a priority for anyone interested in developing their movement and, in my opinion, developing their life opportunities, their experience of life, kinetic keystone being a protocol and course, a course which you can see on my website at kregvandcom. In the previous discussion we took a bit of a focused, serious look at the risks and the reasons related to necessity, why we must take this serious, in my opinion, especially if movement is our priority, especially if we have a lifestyle that is dominated by sitting and if we have any interest in maintaining our sense of freedom, our independence, a feeling of vitality throughout our life, not just as much as we can now, but preserving that all the way through. So we're going to move on to the next essay that I've written in this series, an essay which I call Two Leavers to Amplify our Movement Performance or Destroy it. And we're going to start here to provide a little bit of context as to why. To lay the ground before we get into the potential, the opportunity that is waiting for us if we take our spine stability, our spine mobility, our spine proficiency seriously, whether we're just starting our movement journey or high level athletes both ends of that spectrum have arguably just as much to gain because of the centrality of the spine. But now we're going to understand how that can possibly be. We need to take a step back for a moment, and that's what this essay covers.
Speaker 1:What does a desk warrior want? As desk warriors, we value the freedom of movement and bodily enjoyment as much as anyone. You can maybe already get a sense that these essays have been addressed at someone I've called the desk warrior. This is someone who is a knowledge worker, someone who considers themselves innovative, someone who does have to work at a desk a lot with technology, but definitely someone with the warrior mentality, someone who knows that work must be done to overcome these anti-developmental forces in our lifestyles, our modern lifestyles. Someone who's not afraid to do that work. Someone who's probably already doing a lot of that work and can just do with a bit of guidance from someone who has, for professional reasons, spent a lot of time on this topic and had the opportunity to practice and refine these protocols with many people.
Speaker 1:As desk warriors, we want to experience the confidence of strength and bliss of play and adventure as much as anyone. Just because we work a lot at a desk doesn't mean we have the same zest to feel athletic, to feel vibrant and vital. However, for us to engage with movement fully, to experience movement fully, we need to overcome a double-edged challenge inherent to our situation. Our daily work is sedentary and mostly seated, putting us in the category of people most likely to experience movement deterioration, pain and injury, and our busy schedules don't have the space for us to develop all the different aspects of movement that are well-rounded and athletic. Human beings must surely develop to feel strong and free. Therefore, if there is a way for us to overcome these forces opposing our movement, that may most lie in efficiency and effectiveness. We need to find some long levers to achieve our movement goals. We must adopt the highest leverage movement practices possible, practices which give us the most in return for the time and energy that we invest, and practices which have the furthest and widest impact on all of our movement. We really need to be smart about how we develop our movement. These requirements seem like a tall ask, because they are, but we are in luck. There is a way. Often, through our biggest challenge lies our biggest opportunity potentially always To understand where to start our movement journey. Let's think about how we can reach our end goal of becoming capable and confident movers despite our daily grind. If we start with the end in mind and backtrack to the fundamentals, maybe we can find some powerful points of leverage.
Speaker 1:How is movement, or movement performance, built? Layers Advanced movement is built layer by layer, from the simplest components up to the highest extractions. In my experience, and according to the wisest movement teachers I have followed, our proficiency in complex movement patterns depends on our mastery of the simpler components. In my experience and in my work, I think of often which I learned from Ido Portel, as I mentioned in the previous discussion isolation, integration and improvisation. Like I said, I like to add another layer on each side of that the injury and innovation on the top. This principle communicates the same idea, though this is. What is important is that movement is developed from the simple to the complex, layer by layer Just isolating, integrating, then improvising. You can see in this image a visual representation of that from simple to complex.
Speaker 1:The best performers understand this process deeply and they comprehend that they may never leave the basics behind. The basics are a foundation which must be maintained to support the structures built on top of it. In other words, the structures are only as sound as their foundations. Advanced movement practitioners continuously use the basic components to hone in and refine or isolate the different parts that make up their target movement pattern. Then they build towards the goal by integrating the different elements layer by layer, piece by piece, repeating this process over and over, inching towards the ideal outcome. So the simple components are not something that is amassed and left behind, once completed, checked off like a box, but rather they are the bedrock which needs to be maintained with integrity to support whatever comes on top, whatever comes afterwards.
Speaker 1:Within a complex movement, there's too much happening too quickly and simultaneously to be able to precisely refine each of its elements. In contrast, inexperienced and ignorant movement practitioners tend to skip over developing the layers properly and instead they head straight for the end result as soon as possible. This produces mediocre results. There are endless diverging trajectories to pursue on the movement journey, with limitless variations and adventures. Let's consider all of human movement as one connected journey for a moment, developed step by step, layer by layer, with every degree of range and position or pattern mapped somewhere on the journey. From simple to complex, every form and flow is comprised of simpler components and also serves as a component in more complex maneuvers. Then if we move backwards on all of these journeys towards the simplest components, there is a convergence of these trajectories towards a few universal building blocks of movement. Several basic foundations and functions lie at the root of everything that we do with our body. At the centre of this many layered movement onion are two entangled processes or phenomena. These are our spinal core complex and breathing dynamics. At least this is how I've come to see it. Of course, I welcome any input. I welcome any feedback, criticism or compliment. Let's grow these ideas together.
Speaker 1:You may have noticed I didn't say spine or core, but rather spinal core complex. We can also think of it as our spinal core system. We'll explore why I call it that later, but for now let's just acknowledge that it makes no sense to think about either our spine structures or core muscles as separate from one another when we think about our movement. They are an inseparable entanglement. In the same way, when we think about our shoulder, we think about the joints and the muscles which produce movement, about that joint. Additionally, when we say shoulder, we think of the whole thing. If we want to focus on the muscles or the joint, we say the shoulder joint or the shoulder muscles. I think we don't have a term that combines the core joints and the core muscles, so I have to make one up called the spinal core complex. Maybe spinal core is sufficient, the spinal core but that doesn't communicate enough of the muscles to me when I say that or hear that. Additionally, from a functional movement perspective, let's think of our spine as our entire axial skeleton.
Speaker 1:In anatomy we have an axial skeleton, which is an Ukrainian, a skull, through our spine and down to our pelvis, and on that axial skeleton we also have our rib cage. But then we have an apex. Basically that sounds perpendicular to the axis, to the axis of our body. We have perpendicular limbs coming off of it. The axial skeleton and the apendicular skeleton. So let's try and think of our core as our entire axial skeleton, because it really does involve the control of our spine from the top of our cranium or skull all the way to the tip of our coccyx, and that includes everything along that spine. Then our core is the system of muscles which produce stability and mobility throughout that axial skeleton the abdominals, the muscles around our spine and the muscles throughout our.
Speaker 1:Now, how does performance relate to our spinal core? And breathing? Because our spinal core system or spinal core complex, and breathing serve as foundational components of every conceivable movement, then we can improve all of our movement by optimizing this dynamic duo. This is a massive opportunity. The exact reasons that such a massive opportunity lies within optimizing our spinal core and breathing dynamics is because their influence is completely inescapable and limitless in reach, yet they are completely controllable. Let's focus on our spinal core for a moment. Our spine has been touted by many deep thinkers in the movement space as the most important base layer of movement. The reasons for these big claims are many and worthy of their own book, but we will cover as much as we need to know as we progress on our journey to better understand our movement. For now, suffice to say that our spine is both structurally at the center of our bodies and dynamically at the center of our movement. We have no movement without our spine. We have no structure in our spine without our core. That's developing our spinal core complex as the first long lever we will use to develop our movement Is the same true for breathing?
Speaker 1:We are more dependent on air for energy and life than anything else on the planet, throughout our entire lives, continuously. If we are cut off from it for just a few minutes we die. We need a steady supply of air throughout our breathing, throughout everything that we do, and the more we do, the more air we need. Breathing insufficiently, for just a few moments can bring our entire movement performance to a sudden halt. Breathing inefficiently feels like driving a car with a puncture in at least one wheel. Conversely, breathing effectively can give us a massive boost in energy and control over the state of our movement. Breathing is itself a movement, both involuntary and voluntary. A handbrake for the unskilled, a turbocharger for the skillful Proper. Breathing is a basic requirement for movement performance. Despite the obvious central role that breathing plays, most people have terribly inefficient breathing patterns, especially desk workers.
Speaker 1:Outbreathing is another profound opportunity for us to develop our movement abilities. Now you can think of I visualize here this concentric circles like an onion, with simple in the core and complex on the outside, at the center. I am depicting the idea that we cannot really get simpler or break down our movement any more than will go beyond our spinal core and breathing in simplicity. If we now cut out either one of those two, we don't really have the kind of movement we want. This essay concludes in saying that we can be confident that if we develop mastery over our spinal core and breathing dynamics, the ramifications across our entire movement experience will be positive and potent. Through the lens of movement, we are leaving volumes of opportunity on the table If we are not mastering the full awareness and coordination of the central duo. These are two of the longest levers we can use to revolutionize our movement. Yet there is a third related lever that we will need to pull to squeeze all the juice from this journey.
Speaker 1:In my experience, some people have some spinal core proficiency and others have some coordination of their breathing that very few have the full control to do both properly simultaneously. Yet this is what we need to truly realize the opportunity of trying to communicate. If we can develop mastery of the simultaneous coordination of our spinal core and breathing without compromise, we step into a new dimension of possibility of which I haven't seen many people operate. This excites me because there is room for us, massive room for us, to gain control performance in whatever movement we are doing. In the next part of this essay series, I take a deeper look at how these two elements impact our broader movement performance and we try to understand to what degree they play a role In turn, we can then begin to understand and discuss the opportunity and what we might find if we seize this opportunity. In summary, desk workers face challenges developing their movement due to sedentary work and busy schedules.
Speaker 1:Building great movementability is a layered process that depends on sound foundations. The spinal core, complex, and breathing are central to all movement. Optimizing these two areas simultaneously unlocks major potential. Most people are inefficient in one or both, definitely not both simultaneously, unless we are all missing huge opportunities. So the central message there really is by understanding the layered process of developing movement and then moving back from complex to simple and converging on the fundamental elements that we can find through all the layers of movement our spinal core, complex and breathing we have a way to improve all of our movement. And this can be obviously understood that if there is a deficiency in either of these and I am saying and we will get clear on in the next part the inability to do them simultaneously, because we can never actually remove one. That's why they are both the fundamental element of movement, both the kinetic keystone together, not one or the other, at least one, no, it's both always that if we have a deficiency there, then all of our movement is also paying a price, or if we improve them, then we can benefit all of our movement.
Speaker 1:I have no idea why I haven't published this essay in the series, but at least we get to go through it together. Five ways our core governs our movement, so let's just take a closer look at some. Let's clarify some of these relationships our spinal core has with our broader movement. Our weak core leads to a weak body and poor performance. Desk warriors want as much freedom of movement as everyone. However, our busy schedule and sedentary work life demand that we develop our movement as efficiently and effectively as possible. In part one, I claim that our spinal cord dynamics and breathing are the two most impactful leverage points we can use to upgrade all of our movement. But I don't want you to take my word for it. I want you to appreciate for yourself just how impactful they are.
Speaker 1:First, I'm going to explain how our core has such a powerful impact on the full spectrum of our movement. Then, in the next discussion, we'll explore the role of our breath. I'm going to describe five important mechanisms through which our spinal cord governs our movement performance Now, the first performance function of the spine is to be load. We're going to go through a few functions. First one, load bearing, which allows our torso, full of very important stuff, to support itself, plus any extra loads we apply on and from our spine. Without the load bearing ability of our spine we would collapse under our own weight and we would stand no chance of picking up, pushing, pulling or carrying anything else. However, our spine cannot bear any load without the support of the system of abdominal and perispinal muscles we think of as our core. It's an unstable stack of bones. I can thank professors Stuart McGill for this analogy. He describes beautifully a fishing rod sticking out of the ground with a guide wire system. Without the guide wire the fishing rod is completely unstable and collapsible, but with the guide wire it becomes incredibly stable and in so, activating our core muscles is necessary to create a stable structure of our spine.
Speaker 1:In our torso, the bony structure of our spine is mobile and activation of our core complex of muscles creates the structural stability we need from our spine to move. This is a different relationship to the one between our muscles and bones in our limbs where the bones provide the structure inherently and muscles produce the movement. There's an interesting different relationship that's happening in the way our muscles and bones work together in our spinal core complex, whereas the muscles really produce the tension required to create a structure out of our spine. Our spine and core thus works synergistically to form a mobile yet stable load bearing structure. The structural integrity of our spine is thus determined by the level of coordination we have over the activation of our core. So to create structure in our torso we need skill, whereas in our limbs structure is a given. It's to create movement we need skill. Fascinating inverse relationship there. Because our spine cannot perform its role as being without our core muscles, it makes no sense to speak or think of our spine without considering our core. We will be speaking and thinking of them as one interdependent unit, the spinal core complex or system.
Speaker 1:All movement demands that our spine bears load. Core stability is the foundation. If you don't have a stable core, it doesn't matter how strong your arms and legs are, you won't have an effective transfer of force. You can't shoot a cannon out of a canoe A quote I have found attributed to Charles Pollacken also one or two other people, forgive me if I'm wrong and this I've included here under point number two, the second primary function. So what did we just cover? The first function was load bearing For our spine. Our spine's first function in our broad movement is to bear load bear the load of our torso and to withstand the loads that are the consequence of what we do with our limbs. The second function is to create stability.
Speaker 1:For our limbs to function properly, we need more than structure from our torso. We need a stable foundation for our limbs. We use our limbs to move around the world and to interact with it. We cannot locomote or interact without the motor forces that our muscles power our limbs. In the simplest terms, the forces that our muscles create act from one point to another or from one point on another. Muscles in our limbs can create movement between two points using tension. For this tension to create movement, one end needs to be fixed relative to the other. Because if you imagine a muscle just contracting without being fixed on one end, both ends just move towards one another and the resultant movement of the muscle structure is nothing, is zero. But our spinal core is our body's fixed point in a collective sense. This is not in an absolute sense, but relatively speaking. Most of the time and in a general sense, our spine is that fixed end of our body's movement.
Speaker 1:Our limbs depend on the stability of our core structures, our spinal structures, to produce the movement that they produce. Whether we are moving our body relative to the environment or we are moving objects in the environment relative to us, our torso remains relatively fixed in position in relation to the movements of our arms and legs, allowing us to transfer forces through our limbs to create movement. Any instability in our torso will result in disturbances in our limbs' movements, lickages and compromised positions, stressful positions, inefficient positions, harmful positions. All the movement of our limbs is influenced by the stability, or lack thereof, of our spinal core. We have no movement or athletic performance without optimal functioning of our limbs, which depends on a stable base, which is made by having a stable spinal core. Complex, we think there is very little movement we do that is of athletic, practical or functional use, that doesn't involve us moving our legs, moving our arms to produce movement of our body or movement of objects or both. And all of that movement depends on the relative fixed point of our spine as our base, our center of movement, our foundation. And if that's not stable and strong and reliable, then all of the movement produced upon it, around it, will be affected, will be leaking will be lost. So that's point number two.
Speaker 1:First one is to load bear. Second one is to produce to be a stable foundation for our limbs and all the movement they produce. Secondly, our spine produces mobility for our limbs. If all we needed were a stable structure to support our weight and a solid foundation for our limbs, then a single rigid pillar bony structure would suffice for a spine. After, the functionality of our limbs is enhanced greatly by having a spine that can move a mobile spine structure. A mobile spine allows more movement options for our limbs compared to a rigid spine. Each extra degree of motion in our spine unleashes exponential compounded opportunities at the end of our limbs. Conversely, every degree of range we lose in our spine destroys massive amounts of movement potential. Because of this, starting at the core and the way levers work and how one structure operates on top of another as we go from the central to the periphery, there is a compounded effect, of which our spinal core complex is the most compounding because it compounds and transfers through all the other layers.
Speaker 1:For our limbs need more than just a stable base. They also need a mobile base to unlock their four capabilities. Ideally, I think this is coming from the fact that our limbs are such mobile structures they have such movement is the function. It's just simply not enough to have a fixed foundation. Even the foundation of each limb needs to be able to move to give us the range of opportunities that the human body is capable of. And it is profound when the base of the structure has a proficient ability to move as well and be stable.
Speaker 1:Ideally, our spinal core offers both the stability of a rigid structure and the mobility of a dynamic one, without compromise. But this is a goal. This is not a given. If we can maximize stability and mobility in our spine without compromising either, we massively upgrade our overall movement. Most people have forecore control and thus poor spine stability, even in simple neutral positions, and their stability deteriorates further as they venture into more mobile spine positions. Increasing mobility while maintaining stability is the opportunity, not just one or the other. We've covered three points so far, three roles of the spine. Firstly, there's a load bearing. Secondly, to offer a stable foundation for the limbs. Thirdly, mobility for the limbs. Mobility is not enough. The options we want with our limbs demand a mobile base.
Speaker 1:Now number four force transfer. The only way any force or load is efficiently or safely transferred between upper and lower portions of our body is through an active, tensile core. Tension bearing active core, using our ribcage and pelvis is a massive structural void that only a coordinated core activation can close. If you think of this area below the ribcage and above the pelvis, the only bony structure is our lower back, our spine, thoracic into lumbar spine, which connects essentially the upper body to the lower body through this core. The only thing connecting the pelvic bone and the ribcage besides, for the lower back, is this wall of muscle we think of as our abdominal muscles and all the paraspinal muscles. The only way we can therefore really effectively transfer forces from our upper body to our lower body or vice versa, is if there is a solid contribution from our core muscles.
Speaker 1:When we apply a force with our upper body to throw, punch or push something, our arms depend on our spinal core, which in turn depends on our lower body, our pelvis, through legs. When we move our legs, we use our arms to counteract the momentum. Even when we move our legs, they depend on a stable pelvis. To have a stable pelvis, we need a stable core. To have a stable core, our pelvis needs to be connected to our ribcage and then we have a stable upper body as well. So there is no stable leg without a stable upper body, because of the necessity that we have an active, connected core integrating upper and lower body transferring force. So when we move our legs we use our arms to counteract the momentum. We usually create a sling between our opposite arm and leg, a sling which only exists if our core connects each end. If we lean on something or crawl on the ground or carry something, we need a connection between our upper and lower body to handle the loads at both ends, or else our poor lower spine, which cannot hide, must inefficiently take the brunt of the load and hang on for dear life.
Speaker 1:Now all forces that travel between the upper and lower body are handled better with a core that integrates the body effectively. Our performance is more efficient and our structures are safer. Any gap in our mid sections, muscular activity, will leak energy and stress our spine excessively and inefficiently, and this is damaging. So really, the core is what integrates the body, upper and lower portions. We don't really have effective functioning of either upper or lower limbs without being integrated from top to bottom. And this is our fourth point of how this core spinal core complex is pervading all of our movement, being structurally at the center of our body and dynamically at the center of our movement. And lastly, the fifth role that our spinal core complex is playing at least in an archetypal way, generalizable way is as a force multiplier.
Speaker 1:Even though our spinal core is primarily structure, connecting load bearing, stabilizing and then just allowing mobility to offer that structure, it's also mobile and this does allow for it to tolerate movement, but it also allows it to generate movement. Undeniably, as discussed, the kinds of movements here are much shorter in range than the movements generated by the muscles of our limbs. But because our body is built in levers, like I mentioned, and anything from mobility and stability either, mobility and stability those are primarily what we're talking about is compounded from the center to the periphery. So even a little bit of movement in the core, in the spine, allows for quite big changes by the time it reaches the end of our limbs. Any force produced in our core is multiplied by the time it reaches the end of our limbs.
Speaker 1:If our system is working efficiently, we don't use our core alone to move our limbs. However, it is possible to use our core to amplify forces that are traveling through our midsection, from our lower body to our upper body and vice versa. This is most obvious when we kick or throw something or during some of the more complex moves in wrestling and dancing. But we can also use this ability more often than we realize. The core transforms from a break in the chain of levers to a preserver of efficiency, to a force multiplier, and we recently covered this concept at my movement school, crazy Monkey Amsterdam, and we're learning, let's say, in a punch where actually the most powerful punches are, with a very loose, relaxed arm that we throw, that we learn to throw with such efficiency, such power, and the throwing is coming, yes, through from the legs, through the core, and we throw it much more impactfully than we can use the muscles of the arm to push. And that would be the pinnacle expression of using the core to produce movement or at least transfer movement, if it's primarily coming through from the hips and then the core and then into the arm. So the role this final core complex plays is massive, extensive, all pervasive, inescapable but, as I said, completely controllable. We can master it.
Speaker 1:In conclusion, this piece ends there with these five primary functions pervade all of our movement in many ways. I hope that's clear and just making it a bit clearer when I make the theoretical, abstract claim, like an onion, that movement and breathing are at the center of our movement, it makes sense, it sounds right, it feels resonant. But there are five ways that I think, the five ways that our spinal core complex does more tangibly interact with the rest of our movement in a functional way, and that mastery of our spinal core will produce radical ramifications across our movement spectrum. Shining light on these five mechanisms is intended to make it clear that our spinal core is central to all of our movement performance. We have no movement without a spinal core. We have poor movement with poor spinal core function. We have powerful movement with a strong spinal core. Lastly, when we look at how to develop the spinal core, we will keep all of these mechanisms in mind. We will use this understanding and we say, right, how do we develop the proficient spinal core? Let's develop these five attributes that we know dominate its influence on our movement. Then we're on to something.
Speaker 1:In the next piece I'm going to share with you exactly how I have observed our breathing, or lack thereof, to impact our movement performance. In the same way, we've just covered how our spinal core complex impacts all of our movement. Let's take a look at breathing next. Now we're going to take a moment to explore breathing in the same sense. I wrote an essay called the Secret Source in Real Strength and Stamina. Why we call it secret source is not because we don't know about breathing because we do and a lot of people talk about it. But there are certain extremely important elements about breathing and movement that I think are completely underappreciated, with massive potential. So in the previous piece, we looked at the role of our movement in our movement performance, the role of our core in our movement performance. Now we're going to look at our relationship, at the relationship between our breath, our core and our movement.
Speaker 1:I haven't seen many people able to breathe effectively or engage their core muscles intelligently, despite us needing both and at the same time. All the time, most people engage their core without really knowing what they are trying to do. Then, if they also try to breathe, their core muscles shuttle with confusion as they force their way through a few ineffective and exhausting breaths. I have not seen many people any, in fact that have an impressive breathing strategy and skill set. I've watched people in all activities struggle to juggle core stability and ample breathing. In other words, people are forced to choose between spinal stability or spinal instability, or suffocation. That's a rock in a hard place. Often they are forced to deal with both, but never have I seen someone reliably operate with neither spinal instability nor suffocation. In this piece, I'll explore how learning to coordinate our core and breathing together can drastically improve our movement.
Speaker 1:Proper breathing, its absence and performance. That deserves a comma over there. It's a simple equation, really. We can only move as much as our fuel supply allows us, so we should strive to breathe effectively during all activities. If we cannot breathe effectively enough, we will not supply enough air. Our performance will decline and our sense of exertion or effort will increase. We will move worse and feel worse. We need air. I think it's so obvious that we think it doesn't even deserve any thought. Think of the ramifications if we are missing something at this base layer. What an impact that could have. All other things being equal, our movement performance across every metric will decline with a decrease in air supply.
Speaker 1:Conversely, more air equals more movement. That sounds pretty obvious and most people have no idea that it is their poor ventilation making their movement feel much more strenuous than it should feel. Proper breathing makes. Proper breathing makes movement feel easier and enjoyable, more enjoyable. Poor breathing makes it feel excruciating and depleting. Take a moment to think about the difference between inhaling a deep breath of fresh air and the feeling of suffocating. This is the same difference in feeling between moving with proper breathing compared to moving without proper breathing Worlds apart. Consequently, this difference in our psychological experience of our movement also improves our movement quality. We can stay relaxed, we can focus better and this gives us a chance to apply our mind to our movement much more effectively. Just think about operating under stress versus operating under relaxation. Even though the physical work is strenuous can be perceived as stressful. If we regulate our breathing, we change that. Breathing increases our movement capacity, makes movement more enjoyable and can elevate the quality of our movement.
Speaker 1:Inadequate breathing destroys our movement in the same but opposite ways. Proper breathing is inspiring. Sadly, most of us have a long way to go before we are always well ventilated. Let's look at why proper breathing is so challenging, in particular during movement. A nice visual of the core versus the breath on a scale making it appear that One is giving way to the other and balance is specific and singular compared to the many options of imbalance. So the core in breathing.
Speaker 1:Let's quickly recap a few things we've already established. Firstly, we have poor breathing even when resting because of bad habits that have developed over a lifetime of sedentary and seated behaviour. Yet we need to continuously breathe effectively to supply enough oxygen to ourselves. This is a fact, and especially for movement. Therefore, we must breathe throughout our movement. We need to breathe throughout our life, no matter what we're doing, but especially during movement, when we're now using more energy, we need more air. This is often when we breathe the least and we struggle to breathe the most. Secondly, our spine is central to all of our movement and our spine depends on an active core to function. Therefore, we need an engaged core to some level throughout our movement. Thus, we need to breathe and engage our core during movement simultaneously.
Speaker 1:Most of the time, and even in Professor McGill's speeches a bit, a lot of people will think, oh, I don't need to engage my core all the time. But yes, you do. It might be at 5%, might be at 10%, 30%, but active it is. It is a structural muscle and it's designed to tolerate, in fact to dominate, to thrive under the conditions of a nice low activation for long periods of time. That's what it is. It's a postural, structural complex of muscles. We need to breathe and engage our core during movement simultaneously.
Speaker 1:Most of the time we need to breathe, we need to have an engaged core. However, in general, our breathing sucks and we have very little skill when it comes to coordinating our core. When we try to do them together, everything falls apart, especially during movement. We have the ability we have lost the ability to use our core and breathing. There is some specific coordination that our modern physical development is lacking or even opposers. Most people that I have observed cannot unlock their breathing from their core activation to any meaningful degree. When they engage their abdominals, they block their breathing. We need to be able to engage our core effectively and keep our breathing unrestricted. They need to be able to operate independently of one another. All of us that I have seen struggle to dislocate these two activities, these two patterns, from one another.
Speaker 1:Now let's take this a step further. The more we move, the greater the demand in our spine and core, and our need for air also increases. Still, we are not able to do them at the same time. We are unable to engage our core. The functions of our spine and core are compromised, functions which impact all of our movement. The moment we start moving and need our breathing to pick up, it struggles Because we keep holding our breath as we engage our core. Breathing, which grants us the capacity, the enjoyment and the quality of our movement, becomes the most restricted during our movement. Thankfully, our breathing is also unconsciously driven, forcing it when we try to hold it for too long. So, before we die from suffocation, we disengage our core muscles to restore breathing.
Speaker 1:An unstable spine sucks a lot, but it's definitely better than the consequences of not breathing for too long, which is death or brain damage. Then, the moment we feel like we have enough air, we brace our spine in return to strangled breathing, because movement relies on a stable spine to bear its load. Yet even if we could do them both perfectly proficiently which we can't, and yet we could just not do them simultaneously that would storm in half of the time or maybe not half of the time, but let's call on average half of the time we would either be unstable or the other half we would be suffocating. But things are much worse than that. We do them both poorly, in fact, even on their own, even if we're just trying to achieve one. So we alternate. Most of us are alternating between struggling to do one and then struggling to do the other, and this sounds crazy when I'm saying we need to be proficient at them both simultaneously. But most of us are in the state of being proficient in neither of them, even in isolation.
Speaker 1:Now you might not believe me when I describe it like this, because it sounds like a proper disaster. At least, I've tried really hard to communicate the disastrousness of this situation. The most easily observable consequence of this problematic situation is the prevalence of injuries, especially around the lower back, that people are experiencing during their movement. The losses in performance are just as profound. However, the difference in our subjective experience of our movement is the most significant in my experience. Here you can see a graphic of it's not just the core and breathing at the center of our movement, but at the center, the central lever we have is the simultaneity of these two.
Speaker 1:Now my personal experience. There are more personal reasons than injury and performance to tackle these issues. There is the sensation of instability and flat out exhaustion. Think of a car with its handbrake up and a few very important screws loose. What a terrible driving experience. I can write books on how different it feels to let the handbrake down and tighten those screws, but you will not appreciate the difference until you've experienced it for yourself. You will not know how a mango tastes by reading it. You must taste it. Think about the difference it would make to your movement, performance and enjoyment if you could easily and continuously stabilize your spine and breath effectively and breathe effectively. We have a whole new experience. Hypothetically, just imagine if what I'm saying is half as disastrous as what I'm saying and also half as important as I'm claiming, when there is a whole new universe of possibility waiting for us. If we take these core elements seriously, layers and layers of our movement would be revolutionized.
Speaker 1:I've learned to coordinate a strong, coherent and continuous core activation while continuing to breathe easily. It's not perfect. It's improving it's worlds. Apart from where I started, this allows me something that I haven't seen much of at all lots of stability and lots of ventilation together. All the time. I haven't mastered it, but as the months pass I'm incorporating this into a greater variety of movements and it feels like a proper upgrade. My spinal cord is changing from previously feeling insecure and confused to now feeling like a high performance machine. My ability to breathe fully all the time feels like I have a body that feels like I'm breathing. I'm not feeling like I'm breathing. I'm feeling like I'm breathing. I'm confused to now feeling like a high performance machine. My ability to breathe fully all the time feels like I have a bottomless fuel tank. No jokes, I can take advantage of the performance enhancing effects of the spinal cord and breathing at all moments, and I can avoid the high cost of letting either one of these slip for even an instant. This investment is already paying dividends and I still feel like I'm only getting warmed up.
Speaker 1:Now the conclusion to this piece. The process is straightforward, really. First, learn to coordinate your spinal cord properly. Then practice deep breathing. Lastly, master doing these together. Start in the simplest positions, progress to more complex patterns. Become a master of your spinal cord breathing in simultaneity. You'll beat most pains and boost most gains. In fact, I've already received so much from correcting these elements of my movement that I'm writing about it every day. What you are reading, what you are listening, what you are watching you can find the very best of what I've learned so far in my course, kinetic Keystone, for which you can even get started for free. In the course I've compiled the best of what I know into streamlined protocols. I've been obsessing over this topic for over a decade now. I've worked with hundreds of clients with back pain, from athletes to carts potatoes. These ideas have been put to the test over and they have passed with distinction. Now the cool essay Really painting the picture of, I think, almost completely unacknowledged element.
Speaker 1:I don't think many people are understanding the structural role that the core plays, and that's that it needs to be continuously participating, and I haven't heard much acknowledgement of our difficulty in breathing when we do try and activate or when we do try and breathe with our core. That's active, a core which should be active all the time, never mind breathing even more deeply under the most strenuous load, with the most tension in our core, when we are sprinting, when we are performing all kinds of acrobatics. Imagine you could perform something relatively close to your one rep max lift. Of course you're going to go higher when you don't breathe and you don't need to for a single rep, but imagine you could get pretty close and still breathe freely. That sounds like a superpower to me and at this stage of the journey, as we really understand, or come to understand the motivations prioritizing a protocol like kinetic keystone. We should have a really good understanding that it's both necessary and really nice For almost anyone to take themselves from wherever they're at to a decent degree of proficiency and simultaneously being able to coordinate a spinal cord complex and breathe easily in as many positions as possible, in as many movements, activities, postures as possible.
Speaker 1:One thing I do see with more proficient movers is when they encounter a protocol like this in Citrobeco or kinetic keystone protocol, it feels their responders though this is, they are beyond this. They are too developed, too strong, too fit to spend time on these less intensive, simpler, seemingly less challenging movements, and unfortunately that's because they missed the point. The reason these movements have to start off so simple, the reason the protocol has to be so specific, so isolated, so simple, is because these patterns of our spine movement and our breathing dynamics are so deeply ingrained that they're really hard to rewire in any more complex conditions, and even the most athletic people I know personally have lots of room or lots of opportunity to improve the quality of their spinal cord coordination and breathing coordination and the simultaneous coordination of them both. And the course does develop over the initial 12 weeks and then 9 months to become more strenuous, to become quite challenging to develop a decent level of strength, to develop a decent level of stamina. But that's just because it needs to inherently get there to be able to be useful in the widest range of situations possible. But it has to start off simple and easy to make 100% sure that the skill, the quality is impeccable. And if you feel like you start the program it's for you and then it's too easy, take my word for it. You're missing the point. You have room to improve, massive room to improve, and the focus is really a shift in mindset.
Speaker 1:As my teacher Thomas at Crazy Monkey says, a certain kind of maturity is required to engage in practices which have this sort of lack of appeal to overwhelm us with excitement. We have to go into them with a curiosity. We have to. There's something we don't understand about what it is we're trying to achieve. If we think it's not for us, we don't understand the depths of what is possible. So come with an open mind, understand that to really do this properly, we're starting at the base layer, and I don't forget layers.
Speaker 1:Movement is a journey from simple to complex, and I'm sure I remember Coach Christopher Summer explaining a story of these high level Chinese gymnastic athletes and how they would warm up. And each session would be this progression from the simplest elements, beginner elements, isolating each component of the movement and then progressively layering them, integrating them and moving towards a point of then combining them all together into an exquisite, immaculate, complex movement. And this is the same thing. And if you have worked on this before, you have so much to gain from regularly reengaging with these fundamental basics and they do need to be a part of the protocol.
Speaker 1:Regularly, especially if you have a life sitting and this is, you might feel you don't sit a lot. I used to have patients that would come and see me say I'm definitely one of those people that don't sit a lot and we would say all right, how do you get to work every day, or training or wherever you go, you sit in some form, some vehicle. How do you take your meals every day? Do you have one meeting or more? Do you help your child with homework for half an hour? Do you enjoy reading a book in the evening or watching a single episode? These things we quickly add up and someone who thinks they don't sit in a chair at all has about four or five hours every day. And then we have the people who do sit a lot and we look in excess of 13, 14, 15 hours a day.
Speaker 1:The developmental impact of any activity that we do three, four, five hours a day minimum is there and it's an unwanted anti-developmental effect. Sitting is anti-movement. It's literally designed so that we don't have to think about our body or do anything with our body. It's passive and then our body develops every moment because we are a dynamic, organic, continuously changing, adapting and responding machine. It changes towards in the direction of these passive, anti-movement, anti-developmental capacities. And if we spend time sitting and sitting and seated, the more time we spend and because in our modern lifestyle all of us are doing it at a much smaller degree and we're missing so much functional movement, even our floors are flat, etc. There's so much to cover that we will cover that. All of us need to be incorporating regularly a practice which is reversing and unraveling the impact of the sitting, seated modern life.