The Tales of Forgotten Subsystems, Thinking in Systems

The Tales of Forgotten Subsystems, Part II: The “Central Governor.”

2 Comments

Exercise is one of the biggest challenges to the continuous functioning of our body—also known as homeostasis. When we exercise, we wear down tissues, spend calories, consume nutrients, and basically threaten the integrity of our bodies. That’s not a problem: the human body has been designed and built by the creative errors of evolution to be a high-performance athletic machine. And this machine comes with a regulatory mechanism whose purpose it is to ensure that our homeostasis does not become compromised by athletic activity: the “central governor.”

Although this may be obvious to some, it is news to the majority of exercise physiologists, and it is still being debated by cutting-edge researchers. What can you say? Old ideas die hard.

Continue reading The Tales of Forgotten Subsystems, Part II: The “Central Governor.” →

Linguistic Traps, Thinking in Systems, Training Ideas

The importance of a “Vision.”

3 Comments

These days, we find ourselves in a multitude of wars, literal and metaphoric. We are always fighting against something. Whether it is obesity, aging, injury or death, it seems that most of what we do is to try and stave off the avalanche of the inevitable. This battle cannot be won—and yet we fight it. But the reality is: we don’t have to.

When the majority of us lay athletes begin to exercise, we often do it to hold something at bay. Maybe it’s heart disease. Maybe it’s something else. In systems thinking, is often referred to as “Negative Vision.” We bring into our minds the image of what we don’t want to happen, and we exercise accordingly.

There are several big problems with this approach: first and foremost, we don’t have a mission in mind—something that we are driven to accomplish. For that very reason, we find whatever it is that we’re trying to outrun constantly nipping at our heels. That is a losing battle.

Continue reading The importance of a “Vision.” →

Thinking in Systems

Reflections on the Systems Thinking/Leadership workshop at MIT Sloan.

2 Comments

As part of my recent trip to Boston, I attended a Leadership/systems thinking workshop at MIT taught by Peter Senge. The goal of that workshop was to pair teams of Leadership Lab (or “L-lab”) students with various organizations of different sizes and scopes. Among the organizations represented were Caterpillar, West Elm, and OCP. This arrangement had a dual purpose: to assist these organizations in developing their sustainability initiatives through systems thinking, and to provide real-life learning opportunities and challenges for the students of L-lab.

I went as a part of NOS (Noroeste Sustentable), a small NGO based in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. My role as an attendee was primarily to provide support to Alejandro Robles, the organization’s director. This was, of course, an amazing opportunity to learn about systems thinking from Peter Senge. But I also went with “half an eye”—as I told one of the instructors—towards learning about the Leadership MBA they offer at MIT Sloan (and PhD opportunities, as well).

Systems thinking is a framework for thought and leadership developed from the multidisciplinary approach to engineering provided by systems dynamics. Systems dynamics quantitatively and qualitatively studies the components of physical systems, their interactions, and tries to model and predict otherwise unpredictable behaviors that occur from the complexity of the interactions involved. Systems thinking takes this discipline and and focuses on teaching people how to view the world in terms of a complex set of interactions, which are predominantly hidden and inaccessible to our firsthand experience.

Continue reading Reflections on the Systems Thinking/Leadership workshop at MIT Sloan. →

Thinking in Systems

A systems view on dieting and losing weight.

Leave a comment

Most of us suspect that diets just don’t work. Despite the fact that every six months or so, a new diet comes along touting a new and amazing way to lose weight, there’s a good chance that for a large chunk of the population, it won’t be effective. As usual, it comes down to the individual’s “strength of will” or “mental ability” to constrain themselves and only eat particular foods, or particular quantities of foods.

I prefer a different approach.

Why not, instead of sitting there dreaming about what we could eat that we’re holding ourselves back from eating, we learn how to stack the deck in our favor? Why not set up the dominoes of our life so that we find ourselves eating what we should be eating, without having to drive ourselves with an iron fist? By the way, that’s totally possible.

The principles of systems thinking (and the specifics of the body), allow us to explore systemic changes that we can make, so that it doesn’t come down to “strength of will”—whatever that means.

Continue reading A systems view on dieting and losing weight. →

Biomechanic Issues, Thinking in Systems, Training Ideas

The language of “static stretching:” How to identify systemic archetypes using linguistic clues.

1 Comment

Static stretching is one of the most entrenched exercise habits in the western hemisphere, especially for runners. It doesn’t do any favors to our running economy, our injury rates, our long-term development of power—and yet it endures.

You would think this means that we have an unabashed cultural acceptance of stretching, but that isn’t so. No matter how positively we speak of stretching, or how much we proselytize its benefits, the language that we use to describe it (and its effects) continue to carry hints that it isn’t—and will never be—a real solution.

Continue reading The language of “static stretching:” How to identify systemic archetypes using linguistic clues. →

Biomechanic Issues

The biomechanics of running backwards.

Leave a comment

Not long ago I wrote a post about the benefits of running backwards. This post is a follow-up, discussing the biomechanical and structural reasons that running backwards addresses so many of the typical muscular imbalances that lead to back and knee pain.

It is my firm belief that mere training tips don’t constitute real answers. As with all forms of training, running backwards only does what it does because of how it develops certain mechanical systems and components. It is important to know what those components are or how they are developed, in case we’ve discovered a new and amazing way to “beat” the mechanical requirements of a technique running backwards—therefore precluding ourselves from reaping the benefits of our training.

Problems at the knee can be addressed by looking at the hip or even beyond, because the knee, like any other part of the body, doesn’t exist in isolation. When we push against the ground, the same amount of mechanical energy (the reaction of our action, according to Newton’s Third Law) flows into our body.

That’s why it’s a requirement for all of us, regardless of race, creed, or nationality, to lead with our hips as we throw a punch. Kinetic energy travels through the knee in a straight line, and if a lower or upper muscle doesn’t pull correctly to align the knee with this vector, we will experience knee pain.

Continue reading The biomechanics of running backwards. →

Thinking in Systems, Training Ideas

Increasing the body’s percentage of liquid assets is how we accelerate athletic development.

1 Comment

The human body is an economic system. If only we treated it that way. The ways in which the magazines and the latest trends compel us to go about exercise and physical development just don’t observe this reality.

Because the body functions like an economy, the surest way to achieve any goal is creating the conditions for growth in that direction. This is why I speak in terms of liquid assets: assets which can be sold very quickly and without losing market value in the process. Increasing the liquidity of our body’s relevant nutrients—fats and carbohydrates, to name two—is the very first step towards entering a cycle of investment to drive the body’s economy in the direction we want—even when “growth” corresponds to growing in the direction of a lower body mass.

Even when we’re talking about running for the sole purpose of being skinny, constraining calories just won’t cut it. By forcing the body to implement austerity measures (through dieting), we destroy its ability to grow in any direction. Even though we’ll achieve skinniness in the short-term, doing so will compromise the body’s ability to maintain it. In systems-speak, this is a classic example of Shifting the Burden.

Continue reading Increasing the body’s percentage of liquid assets is how we accelerate athletic development. →

Biological, psychological, and social systems affect our development of speed, power and endurance. Let's discuss them candidly.