Don’t Overthink It

Categories: Blog Nov 11, 2015

When I was a young trainer/ coach, I prided myself in being able to break down exercises into the smallest of moving parts. Arm goes here, wrist goes there, turn your upper arm out just so…

I was truly interested in the finer nuances of exercise form. Plus, I guessed it made me look smart, or so I thought, in front of my clients.

The truth is, hindsight being 20/20, it made things more complicated than they needed to be at the time.

When we were kids, and I know this firsthand from being a kid, and secondhand from watching my 4 year old son, and my 23 month old daughter, we just moved.

[caption id="attachment_5499" align="alignleft" width="350"] "Hmmmmmm... Should I tell them they're doing it "wrong"?"[/caption]

That was it. 

We wanted to do something and we did it.

It wasn’t overly planned.

Or in the case of the modern trainer/ coach - overly-cued.

My kids, like millions of others around the world, just move. They go from A to B to C to D. And they aren’t thinking, “Contract this, squeeze that, rotate this…”

They just do.

One of the things that really trips people up when using Original Strength, especially when teaching the RESET regressions at our workshops, is the distinct lack of cueing. 

This messes detail-oriented people up, especially coaches, trainers, and therapists who are intimately and obsessively concerned over every minute detail, like I used to be. It can be a real stumbling block.

“Is your weight in your whole hand, or just on the outside of your hand? And to what degree is your arm internally rotated, or is it?”

Great questions, but just like kids, they’ll be answered in the doing.

So what should you focus on when doing your RESETs? 

Simple. Just two things.

1. Breathe into your belly.

Breathing into your belly - or diaphragmatically, is the first, and arguably the most important RESET. 

Why? 

Because you can’t live if you can’t breathe, right?

Of course there’s more to it than that, but if you can just remember to breathe into your belly, lots of good stuff will happen for you.

2. Use your head.

Your body is designed to follow your head. So keep it up or lead with it and your body will fall in line.  

And that’s literally it.

The RESETs are simple. 

They work fast.

And they work best when you can get your mind out of the way.

Remember, you’re made to move, not obsess about moving. 

If you want to know more about the “why” and “how” about the RESETs, you’ll want to grab a copy of our new book, Pressing RESET: Original Strength Reloaded.

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