Reductionist Thinking – Painting Yourself into a Corner

My basic premise is that the body is very intelligent and
self organizing. It instinctively knows what to do, how to do and when to do
it. Daily life activities and sport activities happen way to fast to think
about some of the things people try to teach the body to do – proper lifting
technique to prevent back injury comes to mind – you can bend your knees in a
sterile environment when you have time to think about it, but under stress you do what you have to do. Firing the glute is another
example; let’s get real, if you are standing on one foot or two the glute is
firing! Why all this mumbo jumbo about glute firing, if the glute were not
firing you would end up in a heap on the floor. Unless I am missing something
muscles do not fire in predetermined patterns, if they did we would all be
robots. That is why people that train to think about firing certain muscles
move like robots. Let’s get real and use good common sense and science to recognize
the wisdom of the body. Muscles work together in synergistic patterns to
produce efficient  movement, if they do
not it is because of diseases like Polio, Parkinson’s or Muscular Dystrophy.
That being said it is interesting to go back and study the work of Dr Kabat and
Knott and Voss the originators and early practitioners of Proprioceptive Neuromuscular
Facilitation (PNF), a treatment system designed to rehabilitate polio patients
suffering from varying degrees of paralysis. They had it right; they stressed
neurological patterns that emphasized muscle synergys using
aggregate muscle action. It worked then and it works now. Most of their
exercises were in prone and supine positions with some seated because their patients
were paralyzed, but the principles can be adapted to other postures and work equally
well with a healthy athlete. To the best of my knowledge I have tried to adapt
my strength training exercises and routines based on my understanding of the
principles of PNF since I was first exposed to it in the early 1970’s. I think
this is why Frans Bosch’s definition of strength training resonated with me. He
defines strength training as coordination training with resistance. I take it one
step farther and define it as coordination training with appropriate resistance
in multiple planes appropriate for the movement or sport. There are is another message here that is a recurrent
theme for me – everything old is new again! Training and rehabilitation did not start
in 1998, we all stand on the shoulder of giants who did not have of the
analysis tools that we have available to us today. They had to heighten their
powers of observation and hone their skills to produce visible and measurable results.