Grow Tall (and Rock On!)

This is a common scenario I find myself in with clients... Mid workout while they’re fighting for breath and thoroughly hate me, I like to remind them, saying: “Remember, Intensity is guaranteed, quality, however, is not. Quality of movement is up to you.” I then gently bark my corrections on form that add more mental and physical work to what they’re already doing, and they glare back at me through sweaty eyelids.

No one’s punched me yet, so I guess that’s a good thing.

It’s not difficult to make a workout intense. You just don’t stop! Go from running, to situps, to plank, to pullups, to rowing, to lat pulldown etc… with no rest in between and you’ll get tired. And these exercises could be ANYTHING, so long as there is no rest. Flail your arms about for 30 seconds, then flail your legs about for 30 seconds and switch back and forth for 10 minutes. You’ll sweat. What is difficult is performing quality fitness movements that promote and develop an aligned body, kinesthetic awareness, and an awake mind.

Outside of that scenario though, you could do almost anything without rest and it be tough.

Your body is made up of about 650 skeletal muscles. Your larger muscles are responsible for locomotion of the body, i.e. movement. These are the muscles we commonly think of when we close our eyes and see an ideal human physique. They consist of muscle groups we’re all familiar with like the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, calves, pectoralis major, deltoids, trapezius, biceps, triceps, and flexor and extensor digiti of the forearm and hand. These larger muscles, however, only comprise but a small amount of the total 650 muscles. There are much smaller muscles underneath those larger ones, closer to the bone, closer to the joints, and they are responsible for the quality of your biomechanics.

The small muscles are not good locomotors of the body in and among themselves, like the larger ones are. Their role is to create stability and quality movement, and they can be engaged by performing one simple task; being “tall”.

As a human being living on earth, you are affected by gravity. Without the ability to press back against gravity, we would all be hunched over with no way to return to an upright position. Thankfully, the massive network of small muscles in your body helps you achieve uprightness in position, and promotes stability within said uprightness. Yes, you too have been gifted with muscles that will press back against gravity.

As I’ve said before, these muscles are responsible for the quality of your biomechanics. The majority of them can be activated by “growing tall” in any position you’re in, both stationary and in movement. So how do we grow tall? Simple; square your feet, CLOSE YOUR EYES, and grow tall out of the top of your head while keeping your rear end slightly engaged, and without lifting your ribcage or your chin. Each inhale you take, grow a little bit taller, and when you exhale, hang onto that “tallness”. Perform this drill every single day for as long as you’d like.

Something you may notice when you've been performing this drill is that, once you’re “tall” enough, your abdominal muscles start to retract inward on your exhale. Congratulations you have just woken up the core muscles, and brought them into inclusion with the rest of the body. More on that next week…

The role of this massive network of small muscles is to act as synergizing muscles to the larger groups. They create stability and work to the inclusion of muscular systems rather than alone. As we know, the larger the muscle the more force it can produce, so small muscles are not good at producing force. However just like a rope or web, small muscles can create incredible stability and strength when used together! They are made to act as a single unit.

The trick in fitness is to treat the human body as one unit; physically, mentally, and emotionally. There is no separation between mind and body, and our musculature and skeletal structure are developed in such a way as to make use of long chains of muscles. We need to train inclusively along these muscle chains, learning and mastering complex technique that arranges our physicality in such a way that it promotes the quality use of our entire being. All pieces of our body are connected, and the more we can connect those pieces in fitness the broader our results will be. Narrow results like muscle size and tone will also bring with them broader results like improved awareness, increased focus, deeper understanding of our own movement impingements and how to eliminate them, improved internal organ functioning and even a cognitive understanding of internal organ status and control.

Let me take a tangent here to help elaborate that last paragraph. I’m a bit of a metal head. When I say “a bit” I mean I LOVE IT! Give me 70’s classic rock, 80’s hair band, 90’s alternative, and legendary bands like Dragonforce, Hammerfall, and Sabaton. Bands like Dio, Van Halen, Led Zepplin, Alice in Chains, AC/DC, Pantera: They all spark something deep inside me that I can’t understand or explain. Rock and roll feeds my soul, man!

I get this same feeling when I think about the sheer complexity and form of the human being. I see it as the most complex energy reactor and exoskeleton for our consciousness ever conceived. We are energy first, a consciousness that observes in stillness, intaking sensory input from a variety of organs and interpreting them into emotional reactions and conceptual understanding that give way to thoughts, organized by the ego, which then forms our experiences into shapes and personalities. This same sensory input, emotional energy and mental energy is then transmitted out and expressed across an inconceivably complex network of nerves and skeletal muscles to communicate our experiences with other human beings. Several other systems (cardiovascular, respiratory, circulatory, lymphatic, digestive etc…) are also perpetually in motion to ensure that our exoskeleton gets the right fuel and needs so that our consciousness can exist a little longer in this fold of space-time.

That’s biomechanical rock and roll.

A million songs a day for a million years wouldn’t do us justice.

We are rock and roll. You are rock and roll!

So what do you see when you move? What do you see when you look in the mirror at the gym? A bicep that needs to be bigger? A waistline that needs to be smaller? A butt that needs some shaping? Any of this sound familiar? Does any of this feel like it sucks the rock and roll right out of you?? This limited thinking and understanding of our human form is hurting us, both inside the gym and outside. Inside the gym we need to understand (as much as possible) the entirety of the incredible wonder that we are. Embrace and train the totality of your being, not just your perceived shortcomings. That frame of reference alone will change everything about what you do within a 60 minute workout.

The biomechanical rock and roll symphony all starts with one note; growing tall. Being tall is the most fundamental biomechanical position to learn, and most of us are unaware of our responsibility to perform it. Stay tall while you wait in line, drive a car, eat your breakfast, and brush your teeth, AND WHILE BREATHING. Stay tall during your squats, deadlifts, plank, running, up/down dogs, overhead press, kettlebell swings, etc… and you will find the considerable mental and physical effort that makes my clients glare at me through sweaty eyelids. Wake your body up, feel as many of the 650 muscles as you can! Grow tall and rock on!

Your Homework:

Perform the “growing tall” drill for at least 5 consecutive minutes a day.

Square your feet, CLOSE YOUR EYES, and grow tall out of the top of your head while keeping your rear end slightly engaged, and without lifting your ribcage or your chin. Each inhale you take, grow a little bit taller, and when you exhale hang onto that “tallness”. Continue this drill for no less than 5 minutes a day, every day this week.

When performing this drill keep your larger muscle groups relaxed. Don’t overly flex the shoulders, chest, arms, neck. If you feel the larger muscle groups performing too much work, relax them and let the deeper, smaller muscles work their magic. Keep your chin and chest down, and rear end slightly engaged. Ideally you’ll want to align the base of your skull with your tailbone.

Continue to:

1. Play; both inside the gym and outside.

2. Learn new skills or continue to master known ones (or both!)

I'll keep working on My Body Kinection, you work on yours too!