“I just want to be able to get down to the picnic blanket.”
This piece is a work in progress. I wanted to write a quick blog after returning from one of our Movements for Life community classes for older adults. These are generally our 65+ classes, though they’re really open to everyone.
We opened the class as we normally do with a new group; we asked the members what movements and capabilities are important to them. We do classic mindmap and start eliciting activities. Usually it looks something like:
Grocery shopping:
Getting heavy items in and out of the cart.
Carrying heavy grocery bags to and from the car.
Pushing a heavy shopping cart, especially up or down an incline.
House chores:
Gardening and moving soil, wheelbarrows etc.
Bringing items up and down the stairs.
Putting things away and cleaning high/low objects.
Playing with grandkids:
Running around and trying to keep up.
Picking kids up.
Participating in games like hide and seek.
Getting down and up from the ground.
Today’s group mainly focused on their desire to play with their grandchildren, which makes sense. Over the course of the chat, one of our new members said, “I just want to be able to get down to a picnic blanket on my own.” The chat moved on to movement limitations and the embarrassment and loss of confidence that comes along with losing your ability to get up and down from the ground.
This reveals the importance of thinking about task-based training. As researcher Jackson Fyfe wrote, “For many the goal is to improve the ability to perform activities of daily living.” This goes back to what we’ve written before about the importance of training to do the thing rather than hoping that abstract gym movements might transfer to real life. It’s too easy to lose the forest through the trees. While adding 5% to one's back squat numbers might be an effective motivator for some, it’s not clear that this increase will have real world benefits for day to day activities. Furthermore, viewing movement as the right combinations of sets, reps, and work volume can lead to a narrow perspective that ignores movement quality and natural variability we see in reality.
While traditional, full body gym movements like barbell squats are great for some people and will have some general carry over, they don’t automatically improve people’s ability to accomplish activities of daily living. Too often gym movements are de-contextualised from the daily task we hope they will mimic. (In this case, our member had a very nice squat, but could only get to the ground by falling over.) Too often the gym setup can eliminate some of the best hidden benefits of the movement. For example, getting the heavy object into a position where you can squat it, vs stepping into a squat rack with the barbell at a convenient height already. Sometimes the setup contains hidden benefits of “in between strength’. Even restricting oneself to implements like barbells or dumbbells can limit the real world carryover.
There are many ways to make sense of and train human movement, but it’s important to remember that these are just heuristics that will inevitably miss the nuances of real life.
When we teach our movements for life classes I often talk about movement in the contexts of these tasks:
Getting down and up again.
Getting over and under.
Getting there and back.
Picking things up and putting them somewhere else.
Moving things around, away from you and towards you.
In this case, we don’t talk about hinge patterns vs knee dominant patterns or even pushing vs pulling, though that’s a valid way to organise movement. We simply provide opportunities for people to interact with the world around them. We also try to avoid telling people that there is a right or wrong way to do things. Instead we ask them to find solutions that work for them based on their needs and limitations. Basically, how can we achieve the task given our personal limitations?
Getting away from sets and reps in a group setting.
One of the first things we learned after starting older adult classes was that it’s unfair to ask people to do the same number of prescribed movements as everyone else. It doesn’t matter how important you think it is to do squats, or deadlifts or kettlebell swings or lunges, once people hit their 60s, it’s unrealistic to expect that people will have the same movement options. Some people will have new hips, new knees, impingements, old surgeries, arthritis, stiffness etc. People know their own bodies and we need to respect their instincts when it comes to movements. Even if 80% of your students can participate, where does that leave the other 20%?
Furthermore, it’s irresponsible to choose a specific exercise or motor pattern then try to force everyone to use that pattern. At a certain point, we can’t expect that deep squatting is going to be a good match for everyone, regardless of how much you might love the movement. Remember we want people to move and adapt and progress, and its important that they enjoy themselves and want to come back. Good advice not taken isn’t good advice, and the most ‘optimal’ exercise program, not followed, isn’t optimal. Instead we focus on scenarios where participants can work with the group to try and solve problems or complete tasks.
Use the wisdom and empathy of your Community.
If you’re not prescribing sets and reps, how do you ensure people get a good ‘work out’? Well first, ask yourself why you’re running the class and what people want to get out of it.
Remember, that one of the biggest benefits of running this sort of class is that you’re getting people outside and chatting with each other. Then remember that we’re working on confidence and skills as much as we’re working on muscle mass. People generally get better at doing things by engaging with the environment around them. (We get better at talking to people by talking to people, not by memorising phrases. You get better at table tennis by playing table tennis, not studying the parabola of the ball in a computer simulation.) This is one of the reasons why ecological dynamics and the constraints led approach can be more effective than rote drilling and repetition.
It can be hard to unlearn the industrial logic of planning around sets and reps, but remember we’re not training for the gym. We’re trying to get people to do things. One of our most valuable tools is going to be the other people in your class. Instead of forcing people to do X sets/reps of a prescribed movement, give people opportunities to engage with their environment and have them do it with a friend or two.
Remember that people are empathetic and kind and like to help each other. You’ll get much better results by asking two people to work as partners and find a level of challenge that is fun and engaging than you will by prescribing semi-arbitrary sets and reps. You’ll create a more dynamic environment with more interesting variables and learning opportunities.
A simple example is doing over/unders as a warm up. These are a great movement that help with hip flexion, hip rotation, hip abduction and dynamic balance. I used to tell people to imagine that they were stepping over an electric fence, then under an electric fence. I was able to get people to do the movement and then maybe have them do 10 reps with each leg. People generally got the basic idea and would dutifully count the reps. Sometimes people would get confused with the movement so I started having their partners physically hold a stick or wooden dowel. Suddenly people started laughing and playing with their partners. People would read their partners and adjust the challenge so it was fun and appropriate. If a movement was too challenging, they could calibrate it and find a new variation that was appropriate. This is play, and play is often the best way to explore movement.
One of the key skills in running meaningful group classes is to create safe pockets for people to play and explore. Having everyone drill the same movements in unison is going to alienate some people or force them to do things that are inappropriate for their needs. It also means that as a coach, you’ll end up imposing arbitrary rules and limitations on people’s movement options. Experiment with getting away from activities which require people to do X squats, then X deadlifts, then X burpees etc. Instead, think about designing activities that ask people to solve problems:
Using the space and tools around you, try and find a way of getting to the ground that doesn’t hurt your knees.
Imagine this sandbag is a sleeping child, how would you pick it up without waking them up?
Between you and your partner, try to move this sandbag to that marker over there. Practice working together and individually. What works, what doesn’t? What was the most comfortable option you found?
Take turns walking across this balance obstacle course while your partner creates new challenges by putting sticks in your way.
How many bean bags can you move from A to B while navigating this ‘floor is lava’ obstacle course? What if you were competing with another team?
I think you’ll find by asking people to interact with their partners and the world around them rather than focusing on inert exercise points of performance, they will have more fun, learn more, and probably do more ‘work’ in the process.
Remember that realistically, we’re just trying to work with people in ways that will improve their lives. Unless you’re gamifying exercise as competition, most people don’t care about improving their one rep max back squat by 5%. They do care about being able to participate in the world around them. Be sure you don’t lose the forest through the trees by focusing on abstract metrics instead of engaging in real life activities in a social context.
Think about the freedom you have as a coach to question established ways of exercising and always ask yourself why the industry defaults to certain assumptions and if you can change things for the better.
