We use machines on a daily basis to do our work, to make our lives easier, to entertain ourselves, but we fail to recognize the similarities between machines and our bodies.
The Machine Principle draws its core concepts from the obvious parallels between our bodies and machines.
Core Components of the Machine Principle: Strength: An underpowered body limits your abilities and is injury prone in real-world situations.
Strength Training Methods: While the Strength Concept can be applied to almost any training method, the Machine Principle focuses primarily on Kettlebell Training and Bodyweight Training.
The battery holds such a small amount of juice that when you want to move from the living room to the bedroom, you’re worried that the computer will shut down! The entire point of owning laptop versus a desktop is for the freedom of movement; therefore, that machine is pointless because it can’t even move a little bit.
To increase your body’s conditioning level, the Machine Principles follows these guidelines: Concentrated Conditioning: By focusing on short bursts of intense training, you can gain rapid increases in stamina without too much wear and tear on your joints.
Even more complicated than these intricate machines is the human body.
The Machine Principle addresses movement in the following ways: Multi-Joint Movements: When you look at typical strength and conditioning programs, you will find that they are heavy on movements that are single joint, muscle-specific, and single plane.
The Machine Principle utilizes exercises that involve a variety of muscle groups, requiring movement on multiple planes.
Multi-Joint Movements are utilized throughout each aspect of training with the Machine Principle in both strength and conditioning training.
Multi-Planar Movements are utilized throughout each aspect of training with the Machine Principle in both strength and conditioning training.
Proper Exercise Movement: Just like a machine, improper alignment can lead to additional wear and tear, limited performance capacity, and sometimes a complete breakdown.
Proper Exercise Movement is addressed by the Machine Principle through exercise difficulty progressions.
The Machine Principle addresses Balanced Movement with balance-specific bodyweight and kettlebell exercises like Handstands, Frog Stands, One-Legged Twists, and Pistols.
Increased balance will also lead to enhanced performance in all other aspects of the Machine Principle, especially strength and conditioning.
Without proper joint mobility, machines gradually wear away at each component until finally the component needs to be replaced or no longer functions.
Just like an industrial robot, what do you think is cheaper: proper maintenance and care, or replacing unnecessarily broken pieces? The Machine Principle addresses the Joint Mobility Concept by: Specific Joint Mobility: Each joint must be isolated and worked independently in multiple ways.
Treating your body like a machine means that you tune it to perform properly while also increasing the longevity of your body through the most efficient methods available.
Do you think a race car’s lap time would be better just because it did 10,000 laps? Or would it improve because it was tuned correctly and driven to maximize the use of its assets? The Machine Principle addresses longevity by: Planning for Longevity: Proper workout and nutrition planning will improve the longevity of your joints, muscles, internal organs, and your motivation to continue enhancing your health through diet and exercise.
Treating your body as a machine means you give it what it needs to perform its function: nutrients in the form of whole foods and supplements when necessary.
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