Which way is true north?

“Everything you do either makes you better or worse.”

As it turns out, the above statement appears to be true….

and it can be measured.

It is measured through testing.

The first way we’ve applied this axiom is through testing exercise, or our gym movements.  Testing movement is the foundation for the Gym Movement Protocol.  This is because no movement is inherently bad for you but by the same token, no movement is good for you all the time.

Hundreds of early adopters are using their body as a compass.  They are testing WHAT exercises they are doing and are experiencing PRs (personal records) every exercise session.  But WHAT exercises are being selected is only half of the formula for perpetual progress.  HOW one exercises is equally important.

The Movement doesn’t view gym movement any differently than any other life movement. In your everyday life when you’re moving, for the most part you’re moving in order to accomplish an external goal: get outta bed, get to the car, sit on the couch.  You’re not focused on feeling your body…and it should be the same way in the gym.

In fact, it’s when you become internally focused in the gym that you should momentarily stop exercising.  What you’ll become aware of is what we call the Elements of Effort which include altered tension, altered breathing and altered alignment.  The elements are associated to failure – they are what comes before failure.

More enlightened lifters have learned that training to failure is training to fail.  And by avoiding failure, they have set far more Personal Records than when they were training to failure.  What you’ll discover is that when you avoid those things that precede failure, you’ll set even more personal records – so many more that you can set a personal record for every exercise.

This is a departure for how many people workout.  So many people go to the gym following something else other than their body.  They are using someone else’s compass.  Maybe they’re following what a guru says is important; maybe they’re following what a magazine article is important or maybe they want to a particular workout because they’re concerned with how parts of their body looks.  Their minds are aligned with anything other than what movements their body craves.  They don’t understand that if they follow anything other than their body, they will break their body.

Through the testing protocol, we align our minds with our bodies.  We align our psychology to our physiology.  Gavin De Becker says, ”Intuition is informed experience.”  The interesting thing about the practice of testing is that over time, we become less reliant upon it.  The mind becomes aligned with the body.

Too often with exercise, food, or even our mind, we try to force things into the shape of what we THINK will make us feel better or make us happy…to force the body, force our life, into the shape of the mind.

The discovery that we can hit a personal record in the gym every time through following the body, or biofeedback, should cause us to re-examine every personal practice: our exercise, our diet, our mentality.  What if we start following our body instead of always trying to lead it?  What if we had daily personal records in our chemistry?  What if we had daily personal bests in our psychology?  How much better would life be?