First Principles & Systems Thinking
Hi Guys, Stuart here. It’s been great to see you all making relevant changes and progress over the last few months.
This month's email is a follow on from our Expectations email a few months back. We’ll be looking at what it means to have an Engineers Mindset and apply first principles thinking to solving life’s problems.
First Principles and Systems thinking: Having an Engineers Mindset
As we discussed last month, undertaking Functional Patterns requires a shift in expectations at the outset. It is not your typical cookie-cutter exercise program. This can be tough for some people, especially those who are used to traditional training, repeat the same routine repeatedly, like long distance running (Is Long Distance Running Bad for You? -How to get better at running – Functional Patterns) , or just want to be told what to do. Unfortunately, making relevant adaptations and regenerative change is not that simple.
You see, as humans, it is important to recognise we are complex organisms made up of interconnected systems which react and interact with our contextual environment. There are factors which determine how we react to a given context such as; our current capacity, aptitude, past experience, genes, whether we’re hungry, just had a fight with our partner or won the lottery…the list goes on. Our biomechanics play a fundamental role in how we react to daily stressors, because whether it is a movement (physical) or thought (psychological) stressor there will always be some kind of physical expression our bodies make. While accounting for all these variables can be overwhelming, it is important to understand that there are mechanisms at play which dictate these reactions. This is where having an engineering mindset and using first principles thinking can be invaluable.
At its root, first principles thinking is a thinking approach that simplifies complex problems to their core elements, questions assumptions, and reconstructs the problem from the ground up to gain a deeper understanding or to find innovative solutions. Having an engineer's mindset also requires running a systems analysis, which is the process of studying a system (ourselves) such that information can be analysed, modelled, and a logical alternative can be chosen. Basically this is understanding and accepting where you are at and how you react to certain situations.
For example, if I assess my posture and find myself in an anterior pelvic shift and tilt I might be inclined to think that is my default posture. While this may be true, it is important to understand the context behind why this is happening. Did I eat a lot of processed food and grains the night before, which may inhibit my transverse abdominis from recruiting and giving appropriate intra abdominal pressure? (Grains, the uncomfortable truth – Functional Patterns) Or have I just been surfing for 3 hours, lying prone in hyperextension while paddling? We understand it is hard to figure out all these variables, and for this reason we suggest going on a movement elimination protocol initially so you can adapt to new movement patterns/postures, making you more adaptable in the long run. You can watch this video on The Movement Elimination Protocol | Functional Patterns Approved.
How can you use this mindset practically? The first example I’ll use is the Functional Patterns 10 week course. Most of you who have the 10 week course have probably realised it's not like other online fitness programs that give you a ‘workout’ to do 3-4 days of the week with particular exercises, sets and repetitions. It is purposely made this way, because Functional Patterns realises that our needs vary between individuals and also the individual’s needs vary daily (as in the example above about eating grains). The goal is to stress our biomechanics enough so as to elicit a change in the ‘right direction’. The ‘right direction’ is dependent on the individual. If you are someone with kyphosis, doing the abdominal release (week 1) followed by the diaphragm exercise, and the wall retraction (week 6) and then integrating it into your standing neutral (week 4) would be one way to solve that problem using first principles.
The aim of this thinking is to teach all of you how to be your own therapist. To continue improving on your biomechanics, movement and overall health this way of thinking is imperative for continual progress. As practitioners, we are here to guide you and the more ownership mindset you can adopt towards a problem solving mindset, the better the results you’ll get.
There are a multitude of ways in which your body can adapt or maladapt to poor posture. The 10 Week Course covers a lot of the fundamental variables which need to be considered no matter where you are on this spectrum. In this way, the 10 Week Course can be used not as a ‘one size fits all’ approach but to apply critical thinking that can help with a problem you have at a particular time. Similarly, it isn’t a course you go through once and ‘complete’, but revisit at different stages depending on your daily context. Using first principles means taking a critical and active approach to health, knowing that no two days are the same.
This can also be applied in more complex movements and situations. For example, I walk my 7 month old son in the pram regularly. Now pushing a pram with both arms doesn’t allow my spine and ribs to rotate. So I played around with just pushing the pram with one arm and noticed my ribcage rotates away from the arm I'm pushing with. I can now alternate my arms every few steps to allow my ribs and spine to rotate. Now, this can be taken further to correct my dysfunctions. I know I tend to rotate my ribcage more to my right when I walk, leaving my lower obliques on the left overly ‘lengthened’. So if I push the pram with only my right arm then my ribcage rotates more to my left, meaning the obliques on the left have to work harder.
This way of thinking is the main thing that separates Functional Patterns from the rest of the industry and why we get the results we do. It allows adaptability and testing variables while also operating within a biologically appropriate framework. This is not to say that we have it all figured out, because we don’t. Other systems may have some variables worked out, but may tend to hyper-fixate on the one or two pieces they get right and ignore the rest which leaves gaps in their application. One of the fundamental principles of FP is to always look for the pieces we’re missing in application and consider the context in which things can and should be applied or not.
I hope this gives you all more clarity on what we mean by ‘Train intentionally and not Habitually’.
Cheers,
Stu