Order and Chaos

From the time we are born we are given certain physical problems to solve.  Coming out of the womb is a harsh and stark shift in reality.  By contrast the womb is a warm, dark and protected environment.  The lights aren't too bright.....the temperature is pretty consistent.....it's kind of like being in a hot tub while being fed nutrients through an IV.  Could be worse right?  But then inevitably paradise is lost.  We are evacuated from the womb violently!  The world is bright, cold and all of a sudden we feel the impact of gravitational restraint upon our tiny body.

WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

It makes sense that at these moments we start to understand the fight or flight neurological construct that will influence the rest of our reality of life on earth.  In essence we are doing strength training for the first time.  Gravitational force is being thrust upon the developing nervous system and now it has complex problems to solve.  If we are to develop into competent, healthy and strong movers the sequencing for this process becomes important.  If we want to learn how to crawl we have to learn how to get into a position that allows us the opportunity to become strong enough to do so pretty often.  If we don't do this we don't crawl.  Same thing with every other developmental motor milestone from walking to jumping.  If we don't get the opportunity to engage with stressors that are correctly dosed for the motor skill then we do not advance to more complex and challenging movements.  

This process is pass/fail in terms of what is necessary to become successful.  Your brain can either organize your tissues, bones, ligaments, tendons and organs well enough to stand on one foot in order to take the next step or you eat the dust of the earth for snacks.  No problem though.....you are going to get many opportunities.  The rate of gravity isn't changing and because of this earthbound reality that particular stressor is more easily adapted to as your body slowly grows in physical capacity.  Once you are walking around on two feet you have created more order from a neurological perspective than disorder than you had previously when you were an aspiring walker.  In another manner of speaking your ability to gain control of your body is linked to your ability to minimize the chaos that comes from a growing body navigating the influence of gravitational compression.

Like a teenager with a fresh drivers license you now have freedom to move around like all the bigger people in your life.  You are now an autonomous walker!  You now have more physical freedom!!  Not because you did many more biceps curls or leg extensions or leg presses than you did in the womb but because you physically learned how to create order within your body.  Your ability to organize your physical matter well enough created more physical freedom for you.  So now you get to see what is on top of the couch cushions as well as find more food for yourself in higher/harder to reach places.  You can also fall harder and get into greater potential danger so there are still consequences if you do not maintain a greater dynamic ratio of order/chaos within your body.

Strength training and muscular development is the same process.  At first you enter the gym and know little to nothing.  It can be a strange, relatively bizarre environment full of equipment and it has its own character that may be more or less welcoming to each individual.  Soon though as you learn what exercises help you and what exercises are problematic for you your body gains more organizational power!  Your ability to walk, run, sprint and jump improves because you learned how to move your body and manage the stressors you have placed on your body over time.  A baby doesn't learn to walk in one day and no one squats 1,0000lbs the first day in the gym.  It's as much of a motor development and learning process as it is a process of repetition and management of physiological stress.

When we initially develop we do not understand that there are limits to our capacity.  What we do understand is that the bigger ones around us are demonstrating movements that are much more complex and more challenging to get access to.  We can not perceive that limits exist because no one has told us there are any.  What we develop is greater physical capacity through organizing the structures of our bodies into more capable beings.  

The question that I want to ask is when/where does that stop?  Does it stop because we lose interest in the physical pursuit or because we were told we would "never amount to anything?"  Is it because we get busy doing other things and developing different aspects of our lives?  Or have we become so responsible for other people and managing other grander dynamics that we forget we still have room to physically develop?   

What we know from experienced coaches who have studied athletic progression over long periods of time is that the limit is what we make of it.  If running a 4 minute mile is more than you ever dreamed of then you will not try for a 3:45 mile unless you can wrap your head around being that physically capable and free from gravitational restraint.  If deadlifting 300kg is the impossible weight to lift then the athlete never lifts it.  If the thought of a bodyweight squat fills you with absolute dread then guess what?  It never happens.  Not because we are incapable......we have been on a motor development journey for a long period of time and still have considerable ground to cover.  It's that we perceive our limitations as being closer to our current abilities than what our true capacity could be.  

In truth we are capable of so much more than we can conceive of being.  In many cases our bodies are more limited by our mind than our actual physiology would allow us to become.  If we grasp that training with a structured order in place is the key that unlocks the door to greater control of our lives then we take the first step in experiencing a limitless capacity.  If we embrace chaos as the construct that leads us.....then we forget the motor development history lesson that brought us here in the first place.  Not because we can not manage certain amounts of chaos but because structure and order helps us organize our bodies into the fullest expression of our potential.  

A sound training structure provides us with a bandwidth of stress that is tolerable, reasonable and most importantly recoverable.  Without this structure the balance of training shifts us into chaos, limitation and injury.  If we are to be limitless we are eventually bound to grasp the reality that freedom from injury is a prerequisite for progression.  A "chaotic method" with its indiscriminate doses of volume, intensity, frequency and density eventually leads to injury.  If we are to be free, unlimited and with the potential of a child learning to walk we eventually must come around to the idea that constructs of order are the only way forward.