The problem I highlighted in the previous post in this series, is the biggest obstacle for someone who is yet to understand how to properly brace their core. The lack of awareness and control of these key postural muscles causes one to ask questions like this one.
And for them, bracing will always feel like an act that they can never do enough of and still not attain proper positions in movement patterns, whether it is apparent from having poor lumbar and/or thoracic back curvature during front squats or a "butt wink" in their back squats.
Further, this lack of control is also the root cause of most limitations that stop people from being able to move holistically and being integrated in movement patterns, causing them to never reach their true athletic potential.
And finally, it warrants stressing again that as one progressively overloads various movement patterns (through intensity, volume or both), limitations cause them to compensate, forcing the likelihood of even more limitations (or injuries) and degenerating their default motor pattern.
The rut that gets deeper
It should thus be obvious that moving in an integrated way isn't just the most efficient but also the safest way. And that is because postural integrity is the by-product instead of the need to attain it through constant and active maintenance of superficial muscles.
However, in order to move in an integrated way, control (or neuromuscular awareness) of key postural muscles is a must. As only then can one have the correct resting body alignment or go about executing the correct muscle firing sequence for movement patterns.
Contrarily, either not having the required control or continuing to train the incorrect muscle firing pattern (because of superficial muscle compensation and vice versa) or the twofold problem of doing both, has many ramifications. The worst one being:
The unintegrated athletic population is stuck in a rut without even realizing it. And for some, their very lack of this knowledge causes them to make the rut deeper.
Hence without the exact knowledge of their limitations (and hence their bodies), any given athlete is either integrated or getting farther away from the prospect of being so.
Perception and Awareness
I finished part 6 with an important fact about the difficulty in learning to use the deep postural muscles and it is that one cannot contract a muscle which their brain cannot find. What this essentially means is that the individual lacks awareness of that specific muscle and cannot perceive** it.
And again, asking how to perceive these muscles will lead one to nowhere. But asking what is causing one to not perceive, will be infinitely more helpful and sensible. And that is because:
Usually, the biggest obstacle keeping people from perceiving these deeper postural muscles are their very strengths!
If people are used to squeezing their glutes first thing before they even think about getting under a big squat or executing a hollow rock, they are training their brain to not perceive anything but their glutes (followed by their contraction and then whatever isolated cues they have been taught).
As they consistently perform this over time and get "stronger", their "strength" (in above example, the overused and hyperactive motor units in their gluteal region), is the very thing blocking them to become aware of their deeper lumbopelvic musculature.
The way out in
Before you think of throwing in your towels and continue training in your usual way, steering away from your true athletic potential, I will say that there is a way.
There is a way to "wake up" your deep and dormant postural muscles hidden under sheets of overused and "strong" superficial ones.
There is a way to reverse engineer your default motor control, unlearn the incorrect muscle activation sequence and know the right one.
However before one embarks on this experiential journey of discovering more about their bodies, an intellectual understanding of the deep postural musculature is necessary.
For one does not begin a quest for the treasure chest without a map.
Continued in part 8
Footnotes & References:
**You can use a muscle only if you can perceive it. Think bicep curl and the resulting pump. Without the perception of your biceps, you would still be able to curl the weight using your shoulders and forearms, but you won't feel the pump in your biceps.