I have a friend named Ursa who I deeply admire. His real name is Evan, but we met hiking the Appalachian Trail, and when you are a Thru-Hiker you are given a trail name in lieu of the name your parents gave you. (I got named Beast!) I admire Ursa because he is fearless. He also is a naturally physically talented guy, and that combination of traits leads to some amazing displays of physicality. On the Trail we arrived at a massive bridge near Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Without missing a beat, Ursa stepped to the edge, turned backwards, and did the most massive backflip I’ve ever seen into the rushing river. Everyone there who witnessed the spectacle was in awe. For the rest of us, trying to calm down enough to simply jump feet first was a real test of nerves. Ursa had hidden skills the rest of us had yet to develop…
Part of being a good personal trainer, or any kind of teacher for that matter, is having the ability to take large, complicated concepts and break them down into their smaller, more manageable constituent pieces. After witnessing Ursa’s backflip, I had fun imagining how I could get myself to be so bold. I started by breaking the act down into its foundational parts.
1) Overcome one’s fear of heights
2) Know how to backflip
3) Know how to do a long, slow turning backflip
4) Know how to swim (in a current…)
5) Develop courage and trust in yourself
The reason the act was so awesome, literally, was because it wasn’t just one skill that we witnessed, it was a bundle of mutually impressive skills all put into one cohesive act.
When I train my clients in the gym, the training is a progressive layering of skills in a similar manner. I systematized this layering by coming up with four levels of competency with regard to exercise fluency. These levels I creatively named Levels 1, 2, 3, and, wait for it… 4. The levels are learned sequentially starting with the most basic for safe execution and working up to engaging your sympathetic, “fight or flight,” nervous system for attempts that border the edge of your potential.
Level 1 is body posturing. A client’s first step toward mastery of a skill is positioning your bones so that they support you and the weight (if there is one) structurally. This is the level to which most trainers teach and to which most people are aware of when they regard someone as having “good form.”
Level 2 is creating muscular tension. The body works globally, even on what may seem like discrete “local” tasks. When performing an exercise, you will be limited by the weakest link in your body’s kinetic chain. By creating muscular tension throughout your body, you not only tie your body into a more cohesive whole, but also get an effect called “irradiation”, where the energy of all the tensed parts feed the total tension and enhance your strength potential.
Level 3 is incorporating breathing to enhance your structural tension. One of the most vulnerable parts of your body is your lower back; the area between your protective and structural ribcage and hips. Learning to take a full belly breath and compress it is essential to safely executing higher-intensity exercises.
Level 4 is all about priming. I teach clients how to muscularly prime the main muscles involved in stabilizing as well as moving big weights, and how to prime the nervous system so that your body knows that it is about to do something on the edge of your potential.
People who strength train are often called meatheads, dumb jocks, or worse. These nicknames suggest a vacuous disposition but this is truly a view from the outside. I pride myself and my clients on being competent, skillful executors of complex movements. While there are more than enough examples out there of people flailing recklessly through exercise, we strive to take all of the movements we perform seriously and enact excellence. Sigafit training believes that whether you are back-flipping into a rushing river off a high bridge, or performing a crisp set of kettlebell snatches, you should be prepared in a step by step manner so that you can be the master of your domain and let the bystanders enjoy with awe and wonder at what your bundling of skills has led to.
