Test Yourself

Posted by Nathan Jackson on

This will be the final post to expand upon what I mentioned in my Philosophy on Fitness.  In past articles I have mentioned the use of  “testing” oneself using a biofeedback technique in order to establish whether or not your body gets BETTER from something or WORSE from something.  I will elaborate more on that here.

The fact that your body can tell you whether or not something will make it better or worse and that we can test for it is usually a completely unheard of idea to most people and even borders on “crazy”.  In fact, the simplicity of the technique and its application is usually too much to handle for most people.   We are convinced as a society that if it’s not tested in a lab or shown in a study that it cannot be true.  We are convinced that if it’s not complicated it cannot be true.

 

Association vs Causation

I beg to differ.  As I stated in my Metabolic Typing post all humans are different and therefore there is no such lab test or study that can show what works for ALL humans.  It is impossible.  It only shows associations not causation.  Associations meaning that if you do X there is a high likelihood that you will experience Y.  Causation guarantees that if you do X you will experience Y.

Studies are only associations and do not guarantee anything.  Their results are bell curves.  Bell curves fit human nature yet we try very hard to fit bell curves!  That’s not reality!

If you want guaranteed results and you base your exercises or eating on the results of a study then there is a chance that it’s exactly what you need, but there’s no guarantee!  There is a chance that it could be wrong for you and that you could get no results or even worse, get opposite results!

Your Body Knows What It Needs

Only your body knows what it needs.  Think about it.  Most of the human processes; breathing, circulation, digestion, detoxification, healing are all involuntary, subconscious processes.  They happen without us having to consciously do anything about it.  Our brain automatically directs these things to happen.  Let’s put it into perspective.  Your conscious awareness takes up only a few percent of your brain power or about 300 bits of information processing per second.  Your subconscious process take up about 11 BILLION bits of information per sec.  Your subconscious knows what’s going on in your body much more than your conscious ever will.

The same goes for food and exercise.  Based on what foods you give or don’t give your body or exercises you give or don’t give your body forces your body to make adjustments.  If you eat only one or two kinds of vegetables then you will be lacking some nutrients in your diet and your body knows this and reflects it if you’re paying attention.  If you, for example, sit in a chair in a certain position for hours on end every day then your body knows this and reflects it by causing a change in your posture and musculature.

Your body knows what movements it NEEDS to make it BETTER and which ones to AVOID that will make it WORSE.  It knows what foods it NEEDS to make it BETTER and which ones to AVOID that will make it WORSE.

Know the Signs

We cannot always consciously know right away if a movement or food is making us better or worse.  Yes, if you eat something that tastes bad or if you do something that hurts you then you immediately know that it is bad for you.  Most things in life, however, are not that obvious.

The body gives us very clear signs though in the form of  tension to let us know that something is making us BETTER or WORSE and that is something we can easily test anywhere, anytime.

Why?  Because tension is a protective mechanism against injury or anything harmful to our bodies.  If you hurt your back or your shoulder it becomes tight right?  It also may hurt right?  That is because your body knows that if you move that injured area you will make it much worse therefore it restricts your movement in the area by making it tight and it signals pain to make you stop moving it.           

           Worse

If something hurts, something makes you tighter or more tense, something dramatically changes your breathing, tenses your facial expression, or causes you to lose balance or change form/posture then it is making you WORSE.                Better

If something feels good, gives you better flexibility or range of motion, takes away tension, and allows your breathing to stay the same, your face to stay calm, and your balance and posture to stay stable then it is making you BETTER.

Testing

Your body will adjust it’s tension immediately to reflect whether or not something is making you BETTER or WORSE.  It will change every single time for every single thing you do.  The hard part is that these changes in tension are miniscule and are not consciously felt or visible most of the time.  To see these changes you must perform (ROM) range of motion tests in a specific way in order to get accurate, repeatable, and comparable feedback to what you are doing.  With proper guidance from movement coaches such as myself these tests are relatively easy to learn and can be repeated anywhere.

Going Forward

Going forward you can test every single exercise, every variation, every weight, every rep amount, etc. to make your very own customized workout that is GUARANTEED to make you better and avoid any injuries, plateaus, or failure of any kind.

What technique or program out there can say that?  None.  If they do they are probably lying and trying to sell you something that’s risky.   They probably haven’t realized or learned that each individual is unique and demands specific movements and foods.

Now the application of this technique has a few more details to it and takes a little practice to get used to, but this is the jist of it.  If you’re serious about learning maximizing your results without any risk of injury or setbacks then please contact me.  Now go out there and make yourself BETTER!


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