The Value of Simplicity

Categories: Blog Jun 11, 2015

 

Human nature is a funny thing.

We assign value based on many different criteria, but two that I’ve noticed over the years are price and complexity. 

[caption id="attachment_3532" align="alignright" width="350"] Early Strength Training[/caption]

I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen or heard of a black pearl, but they are some of the most expensive pearls you can buy. Is there anything inherently more valuable about them than a regular pearl?

Funny you should ask. When they were first introduced to the jewelry market post World War II, no one would buy them because there was no reference point for their value. What were they worth? Compared to what…? So the guy trying to sell them went to Harry Winston, a famous New York City jeweler, known as the “King of Diamonds,” and “Jeweler To The Stars,” and asked if Harry would place the black pearls in his window surrounded by rubies, sapphires, and other precious gems. And because of that association with Harry, and their placement next to highly valued gems - positioning - black pearls are more expensive today than regular pearls.

The other thing people tend to value is complexity. Something that has a lot of moving parts, or comes in a thick three-ring binder, or is one of many things that shows up on your doorstep as part of a “big box of stuff” is also deemed more inherently valuable than something that is simple.

For example, one of my friends stated that in a complex movement system, with a very high price tag to participate and learn, in which he participated, there were 1100 different options, as calculated by one of their Master Trainers, to deal with shoulder pain/dysfunction.

1100.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time to sort through 1100 of anything hoping that one will be the right “fix” for my problem. I want the answer yesterday.

The problem within our society has become our equation of value with complexity and price. Worse, the higher the price tag and the greater the complexity associated with a thing, the greater value we assume that thing must have.

More often than not, this is false, as anyone who has struggled wading through a complex solution can attest.

(It would do us well to remember the principle Occam’s Razor, which states, “When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.”)

This is especially true with regards to “fixing” your movement “issues.”

More often than not we’re supposed to stretch this, strengthen that, and activate another using a variety of means - foam rollers, dynamic mobility drills, bands, and other things.

The reality is, these modalities more often than not address symptoms but rarely, if ever, do anything to fix the root cause.

What’s that root cause?

Lack of reflexive stability (also known as reflex stabilization).

What’s that?

Your body’s basic ability to move was developed from the time you were an infant leaving your mother’s womb until early childhood and that ability to acquire movement was done subconsciously and based on a series of reflexes that were pre-programmed in your brain.

As a result, your body can respond to movement on a subconscious level faster than your conscious mind can process it. During that process, your body automatically uses the right muscles about the right joints at the right times with the right force production. Specifically, your body’s ability to stabilize your spine and your pelvis to provide a stable platform for the rest of your muscles to work.

Address your loss of reflexive stability, and many of the symptoms you find yourself normally addressing - tight calves, sore lower back, tight shoulders, stiff knees, start to disappear as the body restores itself to its natural “factory default settings.”

Great, in theory… But how exactly do you do that?

Simple.

Revisit the same sequence that developed your reflexive stability in the first place.

That’s what the Original Strength Resets are all about. They’re based on the same developmental sequence you automatically went through when you were a baby.

There’s no special equipment needed.

And you can do them anywhere, anytime, even in your street clothes.

Sure, you may get some funny looks at the office, or from your kids or dog, but as silly as they may feel, there’s no denying the empirical evidence that they work. People from all over the globe are using them to recapture lost movement and take back control of their health and life. Professionals like MD’s, Physical Therapists, Chiropractors, Professional Strength Coaches, Professional Trainers, and “everyday” ordinary folks are discovering the value of the simple.

You can too.

“Wait, wait, wait… There’s no science to back up what you’re proposing. Where’s the double-blind evidence based research studies to prove your assertion?”

Great question.

There’s a term called simplexity that defines an emerging theory based on general systems theory, dialectics (philosophy), and design. It proposes that there is a complimentary relationship between the complex and the simple. Furthermore, that the complex can be often explained, interpreted, and even controlled by the simple.

Ponder this for a moment:

When you were a child, no one had to teach you how to walk, did they?

No.

You did it “automatically.”

There was a very complex process you went through, that is inexplicably (to some) pre-programmed in your brain, that got you to upright with no help from the outside world.

Yet, in our attempts to understand human movement, using the Western Allopathic model, we’ve limited ourselves to a reductionist approach: Boiling everything down to individual parts, isolating them from the whole.

For example: You have shoulder pain. It obviously must be your shoulder. Well, there may be a functional issue with your shoulder - something gone wrong inside that needs to be addressed - like a torn rotator cuff. And if it is, the assumption is that the torn rotator cuff occurred as an isolated incident. So we address the isolated incident through surgery and direct rehab of the rotator cuff muscles without addressing the system - the body - as a whole.

Continuing with our rotator cuff example, many rotator cuff issues occur from “overuse.” And that occurs many times because of forward slumped shoulders. Why are the shoulders slumped? Because they follow the head and the individual’s head is forward and no longer in line with the rest of his spine. As a result, his posture has changed for the worse, and the rest of his body isn’t working as designed.

That’s not a complete assessment by any means of rotator cuff dysfunction, just a start, to show you the reductionist approach to movement.

Although the reductionist approach seems to be simple on the surface, one of the missing elements of pulling the body apart into all its components is that there is no way to put all the pieces back together to get them to work in synchrony again as the unit they were intended to be. And so complex theories and approaches have been proposed and adopted in an attempt to make this happen. Hence my reference earlier to the system that had 1100 possible explanations to fix your shoulder.

Back to the science:

All of the resets and the developmental sequence (also known as the neuro-developmental sequence) is based on empirical observation (aka - The Scientific Method) and published science.

One case in point:

One of the Original Strength principles is reacquiring head control.

When looking at the available medical literature (published science), we discover that many of the functions of the human body are directly affected / controlled by the cranial nerves (examples: C3, C4, C5 directly impact your cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, and immune systems). When you lose control of your head (forward head posture), these nerves are compressed and neural output to these systems is reduced. Therefore, these systems no longer function optimally.

This explains why so many people see inexplicable results, like rapid weight loss, from doing the resets. Their body is now functioning the way it was designed.

The bottom line is this:

The Original Strength Resets provides a very simple explanation to a complex problem: How do we keep the human machine running optimally so we can fully enjoy the human experience?

At the end of the day, the Resets aren’t complicated to learn or use (even though they affect very complex processes).

Nor are they expensive to learn.

And because of that, many people will dismiss their value.

That’s their loss.

It doesn’t have to be yours.

If you’re struggling to move like you did when you were young - soreness, stiffness, and maybe even some aches or restricted ranges of motion, the good news is your body has a “reset” button. Press it with the Original Strength Resets.

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