The Basic Case for Variability
One of my favorite concepts I’ve learned over the past couple of years has been the concept of variability and how it contributes to movement health. In the same way that we want to eat a variety of foods for a well rounded, healthy, nutrient dense food based diet, we want to move in a variety of ways for a well rounded, healthy, nutritious movement diet.
There are a few lenses through which to view variability in movement.
The Body is Complex, And So Is Movement:
From a big picture perspective, our bodies are extremely complex systems and to say that our whole body is greater than the sum of its parts is an understatement. The first thing to know is that when we walk, we never take the same exact step. The same goes for any other repetitive movement we do. There is a natural variability of movement that happens within our body, even when we think we’re doing the exact same thing over and over again. It used to be thought that these inconsistencies were errors. There is current research to support that actually, the more variability you have in your movement, the better off you are because the more options you have to complete the same task. (Hamill et al, 2012). The variability in our repetitive movements, like walking, is unconscious, so how do we consciously create a more optimal system by creating more variability in our repetitive movements? Hint: the answer is NOT to have to think about every step you take! It’s way easier than that.
“Multiple degrees of freedom of the body, including joints, muscles, and the nervous system, combine with external forces during movement to produce countless patterns, forms, and strategies. The redundancy of the system allows for the use of multiple strategies to accomplish any given task.” Harbourne 2009
If we focus on creating more degrees of freedom in our joints and muscles, create feelings of safety in movement, and change up our environment from time to time, the body and brain will do the rest to help us accomplish our daily tasks in the most efficient way it knows how. How can we do this? Change up our routines! Any new movements you perform throughout your day, whether it’s a new workout, a different yoga instructor than the one you always go to, or putting on your jacket with the opposite arm first can contribute to your brain’s database of information. The more information the brain has, the more options it has for creating efficient movement in your body.
I like to think of this in terms of Google Maps. If I’m at my home in Brooklyn, and I’d like to get to the Beacon Theater in Manhattan in an Uber, Google Maps will load the the most efficient route for the Uber to get me there. However, the number of routes we could actually take are infinite. Depending on traffic, accidents, and road closures, Google Maps will re-route my driver to accommodate for the hold up. At the end of the day, the goal is efficiency. How did Google Maps figure this out? The more information that’s entered Google Maps about roads and traffic and various routes (input), the more options we will have to be re-routed depending on the situation and complete our goal of getting from point A to point B (output)..
Now imagine that you’re in a very remote town in the middle of Nebraska. There’s chance (maybe not anymore, but at one point!) that all the possible routes to get you from point A to point B through this town are not loaded into the Google Maps system. If there is a road blockage, you won’t be re-routed because Google Maps doesn’t have the additional information, so you’re stuck or you have to return where you came from.
Variability in the body works similarly. The more input you have from different movements in different contexts, the more options the brain has to work with to get you from point A to point B in the most efficient manner.
It’s Common Sense
Now, efficiency aside, just think about it from a common sense perspective. Let’s say we eat very healthy. Our diet is: yogurt and granola every single day for breakfast, a Tuscan kale salad with grilled chicken every single day for lunch, and grilled salmon with broccoli every day for dinner. Taken on their own, the meals are healthy, but eating the same exact meal every single day doesn’t add up to a wholesome diet. If you only ever run, try yoga. If you’re not feeling that adventurous, try running a different way, like sprinting sideways, or interspersing squats every 2 minutes of running. If you never sprint, try sprinting.
You’re Less Likely to Get Injured
From an injury prevention perspective, there's an inverse correlation between individuals with higher variability in their movements and their repetitive stress injury rates (Hamill et al, 2012). Going back to the Google Maps example, if you walk to work down the same dirt path every single day for 30 years, and only occasionally do you take the other dirt paths available to you to get you to work, which path do you think will display greater wear? The first dirt path. You can think of your body’s movements in the same way. The less options you have to complete a task, the more you repeat the same few options you do have. When your body needs more options, but you don’t have any, a repetitive stress injury might be on its way.
Performance of Your Current Goal Can Improve
If you’re a runner, and you want to improve your running, adding some of the variable measures I mentioned above may actually improve your running skill. If you want to get better at pushups, trying them with asymmetrical arm positions, on uneven surfaces, and at different speeds can improve how your baseline pushup looks and feels (Hargrove p.175).
Anatomically, We’re Complicated!
Even if we’re wanting to argue for variability on a small picture scale, looking at the details of the musculoskeletal system will get us to the same idea. I read an article recently about hamstring anatomy and training. Our hamstring is actually made up of four muscles. They vary in where exactly they attach and how long they are, and they also vary in size and fiber organization. They perform a various combination of things such as flexing and extending the hip, internal and external rotation of the hip, and bending and flexing of the knee, but they don’t all perform the same tasks. Because of the various lengths of the muscles, their leverage acting on the knee joint and hip joint is varied and each hamstring muscle is strongest at different knee bending angles. Some internally rotate the hip, some externally rotate the hip. If you’re doing a bridge, turning your feet out will access a different sensation than keeping your feet parallel. Using your hamstrings in a deadlift is different than using your hamstrings in a bridge pose. To complicate matters, each muscle has different innervated regions within it that may be activated differently depending on the movement performed. The point isn’t to consciously think of these things while exercising or moving. The point is only to expand our idea of what a specific exercise is or should be and try it in a new way. If we think our hamstrings are strong just because we run, we may be in for a surprise the next time we try to do a bridge hamstring slide!
Once you buy into the value of changing your movement patterns, creating variability can become an exciting addition to your daily life. It doesn’t have to be big, and it doesn’t have to interfere with the things you already love to do. But small things like using your non-dominant hand, trying a new workout class, changing the environment of your next bike ride, or warming up with squats instead of lunges before your tennis match, can be simple ways to input valuable information into our system for better movement, and therefore a better quality of life.
keep moving.