movement coaching - moving as nature intended
This month's Restored Human is Claudio. Having just turned 54, we are celebrating both Claudio's birthday and his 1 year Restore Human Anniversary!
At the start of Claudio's 'restoration' journey, he wasn't on board with working out or working out in a gym - something most of us can relate to, including the team at RH. Believe it or not, we're 'anti-gym' ourselves, which is why we train completely different from the mainstream.
What brought Claudio into Restore Human? His life had slowly become less and less active, aches, pains, and general tightness started to crop up more and more. He brought that up in a visit to his doctor and she mentioned Restore Human. He tried a complimentary session to see if we were a good fit and the rest is history!
Claudio’s Assessment
Claudio’s first point of action was to reacquaint him with his joints; how they moved and didn’t move. We were curious about his joint limitations or, rather, where did the areas of movement opportunity present? We made great progress with Claudio’s hip and spine mobility specifically.
By creating sessions that provide enough stress for adaptation, applying consistent force into the tissues, building proprioception and applying strong mental focus, we improved his joint and movement capacity. Although less glamorous than mainstream training, it is incredibly effective.
After Claudio reconciled amicably with his joints we got a baseline of his basic human fitness using the Restore Human Big 5 Metrics. The Big 5 is a series of straightforward and repeatable capacity tests that allow us to measure strength, grace and resilience.
One of the Big 5 Metrics is an eccentric push-up while maintaining task appropriate tension. What is an eccentric push-up? Starting at the top position of a push-up you lower yourself down as slow as possible without pausing. All whilst maintaining a biomechanically optimal position.
The benefits of testing eccentric strength include reduced risk of injury, muscle strength and hypertrophy, improved mobility and greater movement efficiency. It allows us to train the nervous system, breath, and proprioception in a conscious way. Strong push-up strength allows us to build healthy shoulders and explore different falling drills with confidence. We all fall down, best to train for it!
Below are Claudio’s metrics for his eccentric push-up:
October 16, 2019 - After a few weeks of training, Claudio recorded his first eccentric push-up with a score of 32 second
March 9, 2020 - After 5 months of training, he improved his score to 59 seconds
April 24, 2020 - 8 months in and Claudio successfully broke the minute mark with a score of 65 seconds, it was around this time we started working on sets of full crisp push-ups
August 21, 2020 - Moving into sustainable performance training Claudio graduated to weighted push-up eccentrics, scoring 36 seconds with a 25lb sandbag on his back
September 2, 2020 - Shy of a year of training and Claudio hit an all time best of 40 seconds with 25lb
Restoration
During our first year of training with Claudio, we constantly evolved in order to adapt to Claudio’s changing abilities. Our first year of training together has consisted of evolution after evolution. Claudio’s success shows us how smart movement choices, progressive programming, consistency and effort will change physicality in every way. Of course, bumps along the way happen- that’s life and now Claudio has established ways to deal with those challenges.
What does taking control of physicality look like:
Claudio gained the ability to express strength and grace through perfect chin-ups, get-ups with a 70lb sandbag, clean pelvis/spinal segmentation (a big deal!) and running with a more natural gait and cadence
Claudio has reconnected with the beautiful outdoors by first training smart indoors, from careful balance work, falling drills, up and downhill muscular endurance and foot and ankle mobility.
Claudio now has an awareness in his breathing and as a result his breathing nervous system state regulation has improved. We can see this evident as we put his nervous system to the test on a weekly basis, with everything from deliberate supine breath training, to nasal breathing runs and intense self-defence training with Coach K.
The Takeaway
The human body responds to what we do consistently. A year ago, Claudio could not have expressed the same level of movement awareness and movement capacity that he does now. Our ability to become stronger, more graceful and more resilient never stops. The human body only needs the proper amount of balance, stress and rest. to get stronger, more graceful or more resilient. Our human system just needs the right balance of stress and rest.
Addressing our health and physicality can bring up a lot of different issues for all of us in different ways. Claudio had to dive in and become uncomfortable in order to create the change within himself, and now, he feels ready for any adventure that life has in store for him-and we can’t wait to watch his growth for the years to come.
Happy Birthday, Claudio!
By Master Coach K
Founder of Restore Human