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
50 | Spine, core and breath integration - Untouched Potential
In this episode, we explore the two biggest opportunities to transform your movement experience. The first opportunity lies in mastering the spinal-core and breathing systems, which serve as the foundation for all movement. By coordinating and activating the core muscles and developing precise awareness of the spine's position, we can achieve stability and control in our movement. The second opportunity involves optimizing our breathing, WHILE maintaining the first point. By combining these two elements, we can unlock higher levels of movement and revolutionize our overall experience. Join us as we delve into the details of these opportunities and discuss how they can elevate your movement abilities.
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Is there one thing you could do to transform your entire movement experience? What if I said, yes, but it's not one thing, it's two. And would you believe me if I said that no one is doing this combination, even elite level performers? Trust me, for a moment you'll understand when I'm done. Allow me to explain. The first thing to master is our spine and core systems. These lie at the center of our movement, our entire movement experience.
Speaker 1:A lot of people have spoken about, and you may have heard, the role, the central role, that our spine plays in our movement. I've just found it not that useful to speak about the spine in isolation. And the simplest way to communicate. Why is imagining the spine in isolation? It's actually a very unstable and unreliable structure. Think of the stack of bones that you would see if you were looking at the spine all by itself, maybe just a little connective tissue just to hold it together, but without the muscular system it really is not reliable. Imagine how it would just flop over if left to its own devices. And there is an interesting, miraculous synergy at this core of our movement structures that the spine and the core exist to operate as one functional unit. Our spine has no stability without our core, and our core has very little purpose without our spine. And so when I speak about them, I think of a spinal core system, because one cannot serve any of its purposes without the other, and they should be thought of, in my opinion, thought of and developed as one integrated unit the spine and all of its supporting musculature. A lot of us have thought about the abs or the core. This is a big part of it, but there's, of course, a lot of other muscles which run across our back, the back of our spine, this integrated system of the spine and the core, the spinal core complex. I find myself referring to it as this is the first obvious thing to master. And as simple as that sounds, the question becomes how is there a simple way to achieve this? And I have managed to find a way relatively simple, not necessarily easy To master this integrated system, the spinal core complex. We need to develop the proper coordination of two distinct skills, of these two distinct structures Firstly and I have Professor Stuart McGill to thank for this To engage our core in an optimal way, in a way which truly stabilizes our spine through all of its positions, with a massive amount of reliability, to activate our core so that it achieves this end requires that we have an extremely coherent activation of all the different spinal supporting muscles.
Speaker 1:This means being able to access, to have the skill to access, all the different layers of the abs, to control the different muscles that live along and around our spine, and to be able to engage them simultaneously with an equal degree of skill and competence. Through all these different layers, and through Ardi's work, he makes it very clear that it's not necessarily a profoundly strong muscular contraction which provides the spine with its stability. It's rather the coordinated engagement of all of these different layers and how they come together through their marvelous design to create a kind of dynamic guide wire system where the opposing tension of different structures in different directions and in different positions all around the spine work together to create unbelievable stability, even at low levels of contraction taking 20-30% activation. If activated in a coherent and coordinated way, we already are able to achieve really high degrees of stability. And this makes sense when we contemplate what the function of the core is, what the role of the spine is, that they should be able to perform this role all day, every day. They operate mainly as postural muscles, structural functions, and so it shouldn't require much energy or effort to create more than enough stability. And then, of course, when we are able to activate all of these muscles with a high degree of tension, with strong activation, then we can achieve much more than we thought possible. We can be much safer. So this is the first skill to master our spinal core complex. Do we have the coordination to activate a very coherent tension across all of our core muscles, all of our spine supporting muscles?
Speaker 1:The second skill we need to develop with respect to our spinal core system is a very precise awareness and control of our spine's position. We naturally have the ability to control our spine position really well if we have access, a high degree of skill in accessing all of our different core muscles and if we simultaneously have precise awareness of our spine's position, then it becomes easy to put it in the position that we choose. But we need to have a very precise, specific awareness of what position all the different vertebrae of our spinal in at any given moment. And Professor Stuart McGill teaches us through the lens of neutral spine stability, because his background is back pain and his focus is rehabilitation of spinal injury, and this is a really useful spine position when we think about spinal injury, when we are rehabbing, but it turns out in my experience that it's also an extremely useful first building block to develop.
Speaker 1:If I can develop precise awareness of whether my spine is in neutral or not, then I'm it becomes much easier for me to be aware of my spine in all the many other more complex, more complicated positions. Similarly, if I'm able to activate with a coordinated coherence all of them, my core muscles, while in a neutral, stable position, then I stand a much better chance of Engaging with these muscles, engaging these muscles and coordinating these muscles in more complex or complicated positions. So the reason I mention that is this is a way I have found to simplify mastery of our spinal core complex by developing the coordinated, coherent control of our core muscles or all the spine supporting muscles, and to develop a precise awareness of our spine's position in neutral or not, and Beena. And the means to achieve both of these in a simple way is by developing neutral spine stability, as taught by Professor Stuart McGill. I've also added a few extra elements to his protocol which you can find in the kinetic keystone course, but this is where all of the inspiration and research evidence comes from. Now I know that was a mouthful, but that was really the first thing that I've managed to simplify that vast topic, to master our spinal core complex. We can do this in a simple way, by mastering neutral spine stability, and this gives us the opportunity to become, to develop awareness of our spine position and To develop control of our core muscles.
Speaker 1:Now the second thing to master is Is our breathing. That if we can achieve everything I've just described while maintaining a completely unimpeded breathing pattern, comfortable breathing, sufficient breathing then we have Stepped into a new dimension, a dimension of which I the dimension in which I have not seen many people operate and I have been Obsessively looking for examples for inspiration but this ability to Create coordinated Stability, to be precisely aware of our spine, both when we are Relaxed or under a light load, as well as when we are under extreme load and fatigue, if we can maintain that and breathe, everything changes. And the reason is because most of us do not realize that not only do we breathe poorly Almost all of the time, but as soon as we try and engage our core or focus on something, for example our spine position, then our breathing suffers. We either stop breathing or we really struggle to breathe. We either struggle to breathe against the tension of our core muscles or our breathing is lazy from bad habits and when we're not focusing on our breath fully, it gets left behind.
Speaker 1:So, developing the habit of breathing properly and being able to completely separate the movements of our diaphragm which we can use to breathe, while we maintain a very strong torso, a very engaged core musculature, this unlocks something I haven't seen many people use and the difference is like riding with your hand breakup, where everything is more difficult, feels more difficult, it's less fun. In fact, it feels exhausting and excruciating, whereas being able to perform any activity, from the most demanding to the most complex, with stability and sufficient fuel through our breathing, where our ability to remain relaxed to have enough energy fuel despite whatever we're doing, that makes everything a lot more fun, that makes everything a lot more capable. We don't just perform better, but we feel better. This is the combination proper mastery of our spinal core, complex through coordinated muscle activation, as well as spinal awareness, but then maintaining that while breathing, unimpeded, unimposed breathing.
Speaker 1:The fact of the matter is that we actually need everything I've mentioned, all of us. We need them all the time. This should be a basic baseline. There isn't a moment that we don't need our spine to be supported and, because of that, there isn't a moment that we don't need our core to support our spine. There isn't a moment that we don't need these systems to work together and concurrently. There isn't any moment we need not breathe sufficiently while maintaining the first, the spine and core function.
Speaker 1:So how are most of us operating if this is the case, if we for healthy, happy function, high-performing function, efficient function, if we need everything I've just described, almost all of us are so far away from being able to achieve that, from being able to execute these different skills simultaneously and consistently, constantly in fact. And are we all operating far away from what we are capable of? And I can assure you, even if you believe you are a high-level performer and you have some degree, some strength, if you haven't specifically and very intentionally developed these skills that I'm describing, I assure you they are not where they could be. It blows my mind how deceptive our experience of our body is, how quickly we think we have something which we do not. I don't know why we do that If you have a high-level performer and you have some degree, some strength. If you would like to take the time to develop these fundamental components. These skills are precisely what my course Kaneli Keystone has is intended to do to develop this most fundamental basic foundational layer, spinal core proficiency with breathing, the basic component at the core of the movement onion for the rest of our movement experience.
Speaker 1:If this information seems valuable for someone you know, do your good deed for the day, please share it. Let's get this information out, let's share real health education as we moving to a new age where we shift away from centralized control, externalized dependency for our health care. It's this kind of knowledge that's going to take us towards an experience of decentralized, autonomous health when we understand we have the wisdom and we have the tools and information to radically revolutionize our own health. Until next time, I wish you wisdom and wellness.