Big Movements Create Smaller Movements

Categories: Blog May 25, 2016

One of the reasons pressing reset is so powerful is it builds and reinforces gross motor skills. Gross motor skills are big movements like rolling, walking or running. The resets are basically gross motor skill generators. This is important because gross motor skills precede fine motor skills, or lessor movements like writing your name on a piece of paper.

To say that in a less confusing way, big movements lead to smaller movements. All of us developed gross motor skills in the first years of our lives. These big movements literally paved the way (the neurological way) for us to develop fine motor skills like reading and writing, or playing the piano or violin. Without owning these bigger movements, owning the smaller movements becomes almost an impossibility.

I bring this up because many of us want to jump right to skill acquisition before we establish or reestablish big movement proficiency. Is it silly that a grown person should have to crawl around on the ground to press reset and establish ownership of such a gross motor skill? Yes, I actually think it may be. But it could be more silly that a grown person would try to learn how to perform an olympic snatch with a barbell when they can’t even crawl as well as a 2 year old child. That's kind of weird too, right? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the olympic snatch is a fine motor skill, but it is a skill that necessitates the ownership of more foundational movements before it can safely and effectively be mastered.

Incidentally, how fast could someone learn how to snatch a barbell over their head if they were more than proficient at the basic human movements? It’s really not hard to write words when you know how to use all 26 letters of the alphabet, right? When a person has their reflexive strength (their reflexive stability, mobility and control) they are able to learn new movement skills easier because they have a much broader neurological foundation.

I guess my point is many people in our modern, non-active world embark on a fitness journey in “the deep end of the pool” when they should really be in the shallow end where they can touch. Does this make sense? I’m all over the place! It is a great deal easier to learn to “exercise”, or learn new fitness skills, or even begin a running program when you own all the foundational movements these other new activities are built upon.

The adage “you have to crawl before you walk” - though not necessarily true in all developing babies, is pretty much true. It is the bigger, simpler movements that lead to the smaller and more complex movements. Honestly, it is the foundational movements, like the Big 5 resets, that really make life easier and a great deal less frustrating. All of this to say, make sure you own the foundational movements and have your reflexive strength. It allows you to learn, grow, become and acquire new movement abilities at any age. It also keeps you from doing weird things like trying to learn how to perform an overhead squat when you can't even roll from your belly to your back while lying on the floor.

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