I know you are staring out as a physiotherapist. We've chatted before about PCS.
OS defines and explains "reflexive strength" as per their website:
"Reflexive Strength is the body’s ability to anticipate, prepare, and respond to movement before and as it happens.
That is our working definition. Reflexive strength is both predicative and reactive strength. It is the foundation of everything you do. It allows you to move and express yourself physically the way you want to. Its presence is evident in poetic, flowing movement and its a sense is evident in clunky, disjointed movement. Really, reflexive strength is reflexive control – automatic control over your body in all the ways you want to move. But wait, that’s a whole other article.
Anyway, even after our definition and our explanations, some people still don’t get it. And there is nothing wrong with that! Sometimes to really own something, you have to wrestle with it for a while. That is a great way to learn and gain understanding. Marinating on subjects and thoughts is the birthing ground for knowledge and understanding.
Other times, however, you may have to let go of things or other definitions you are holding unto in order to be able to grasp something new. It is often our own definitions or beliefs that prevent us from moving forward and gaining new insight, knowledge or even perspective."
https://originalstrength.net/2017/01/09/the-definition-of-reflexive-strength/
I'm asserting the improvements in my posture from OS crawling. I don't need to know the physiology behind how something is improving my body; I'm happy that it is working and that rather than feeling more broken down as years have gone on my body feels better from crawling with my head upright. I've done my share of animal/primal movements from martial arts and dabbling with different training programs and I have not seen the same results as it relates to posture.
I never said we lose things because we are not crawling like babies. Most people suffer from lack of movement, which is being seen even in young school age children. Crawling doesn't even cover all the ranges of motion that we likely should incorporate on a regular basis. However, I will say that the "resets" (keeping w/ OS terminology) are a great way to cover a lot of ranges of motion in a very short period of time.
As far as the head posture goes with the crawling, I agree, not everyone can do it. I never said everyone should and neither do they. When I went to the OS workshop in Toronto, Tim Anderson talked about how one of the OS coaches had a woman do seated cross-crawls and she experienced improvements. She wasn't able to do any form of crawling on the ground. OS doesn't push people to do movements that cause pain. Sometimes you don't even know how hard you are working yourself until afterwards like with any exercise. I felt the need to ice my neck one of the times I did crawling in the early going when I probably overdid the duration. It didn't hurt while doing it, but my muscles were being worked in a new and unique way.
Tying this back into the versa climber thread, as a physiotherapist, do you think marching is a good alternative? I've seen some DIY options for making clubs to add to the intensity of the movement or you can simply use some empty wine bottles.
Yeah it's what I thought, "reflexive strength" is just an umbrella term they've created which covers a lot of subcategories of the muscular and neurological functions. It's basicly your reponsiveness to changing demands. It's basicly the same as "functional strength". Doesn't really tell the whole story, but it sounds good.
Yeah I know that you feel better after doing it. I can see why that is, as I said, lot's of what I've seen looks like decent principles (some that I use myself). Sometimes proof definitely is in the pudding, and I'm not an evidence freak, for the sake of evidence. I feel like you can review litterature all you want and have first class evidence to back up your training method, and still it falls apart if you don't know how to modulate it to the individual, or put it in context.
What I'm saying is, that your proof that it helps posture is because you sense, or experience that it has helped yours. That's fine. If you make a claim that it helps posture as a rule, I'd like to hear what the reasoning behind that is. If we're talking about people with pain, then I know for a fact that there is no one size fits all, and with neck pain it's infinitely more true (not to mention the complexity of the pain matrix, but I wont go into that). If you go further and say that the curvature of the spine is developed through crawling, now I need some real bio-physiology to back it up.
Yes, the baby thing is pure nonsense. That doesn't mean that crawling like a baby or whatever wont work for you or be a good exercise for many people, but the idea the way a babys body functions and moves is the way ours should is nonsense. Dean Sommerset wrote a short article about it a few years back with the whole "squat like a baby" craze:
http://deansomerset.com/adults-cant-squat-like-babies-stop-trying/
I listened to a little bit of the interview vid, and here is where I have a huge problem with that dude. At about 17:38 on, he says that crawling is a neurological reset. What does that mean? In what way is that a neurological "reset"? That doesn't make any sense, and he doesn't explain why that is. He goes on to say that you use both hemispheres and making new neural connections. Well.. that's true, but that's true for basicly all movements we do. Has nothing to do with crawling, it's not magical. In fact, if you want to talk about motor learning and stimulating cognition, then crawling is like at the bottom of the list as a gross motor skill. Go play tennis or something and you'll use your brain capacity tenfold. Then he starts talking about it improving your memory and emotional stability and all sorts of shit which is a huge leap. It's all about the input in the brain and the stimuli, and crawling as one is extremely basic. Goes back to the baby nonsense again, as it's some untapped fountain of youth or something. His rationale for "reflexive strength without thinking" is just "it does this". That's it. Also, how is that different from doing a million other exercises.
It's gimmicky. I know exactly what mechanism he's talking about, the thing is I know them in depth and it doesn't seem like the does from the very vapid explanations and over simplifications.
Again, now that I've shit on something you clearly like and that has worked well for you (sorry bout that), I'll say that I still believe that he teaches a lot of good stuff and I'm glad that you found relief with it. Also, good that they have alternatives and don't force people to do it their way, if pain is present. I can seperate the good from the not so good, I'm sure I could learn from some stuff the program too.
EDIT: Oh, forgot about the question in my ranting. Versaclimber and marching are very different. Marching your lifting with your legs, versa your pushing, marching your lifting up with your arms, versa your pulling down. The energy demands are also very different in responds to the load, versaclimber is very easily anerobic possibly with a huge lactace buildup. Marching, not so much, although the clubs would definitely give you a shoulder workout.
Marching is fine, I like skipping better personally but they are in the same familiy. Not a simular experience to the versaclimber though.
