Micro Assessments for Refining Movement

This post advocates for short, specific tests to incorporate study of physical movement into our everyday lives. These tests, termed “Micro Assessments”, are designed to help consider exactly what comes into play when we move. Everything from our fingers to our ribs is connected, creating the cohesive system of our bodies. The more we understand it, the better control we have over our physical movement.

Studying movement takes time.

We have countless ways we can move, and each type of motion seems to require a unique interplay of muscles and positioning.

In my study of fitness, I have noticed a major disconnect with how we typically train fitness and what makes sense for learning our body’s diverse toolkit.

Our traditional workout systems typically focus on recruiting our bodies to move the maximum amount of weight in a few standard motions. These systems concentrate on power and consider refined body control as an expected result of stronger muscles.

While traditional workouts do increase power in the trained ranges of motion, they do not always translate to address the practical realities of movement. If we tried to make a traditional workout system that equally trained all of our ranges of motion, we could easily spend several hours a day at the gym, making for an overwhelming and unsustainable practice.

I find that I best improve how my body works by introducing regular check-in assessments of limited movements areas through what I call Micro Assessments.

In order to understand the importance of micro assessments and where they come into play, let’s begin by considering how we most often exercise currently.

Traditional Exercise and its Limitations

Traditional workout plans try to address all the ways we can move with two distinct formats of training: compound muscle movements and isolation training.

Compound muscle movements require using muscles across our body to complete a repetition, helping train several muscle groups at once and improve whole body coordination (ex. burpees, squats, bench press). These movements stand for the proposition that it makes most sense to train muscles together because we need our body to act as a cohesive system.

Conversely, isolation training involves targeting specific muscle group, allowing us to refine a particular range of motion (think seated preacher curls or leg extensions). These movements recognize that we are a complete system, but propose that the system is most effective when each individual component is trained to the best of its individual capacity.

Both of these systems can be great tools in one’s pursuit of fitness, but alone, they do not provide us with a time-efficient manner to assess how our body moves and build control across all of our regular movements. Compound movements are great for teaching body parts to work together, but they are not as effective for refining each of the components a movement. Likewise, we can spend hours at the gym building muscles in isolation, but it is impractical to assume we can regularly work out muscles one at a time, and we often tend to favor particular muscles and compensate for weaker groups.

This is where micro assessments come in.

What are Micro Assessments?

Micro assessments are brief (think seconds to minutes) check-ins at designed to learn how a given part of our body moves and feels along one of its ranges of motion. These assessments help us both quickly check in on different parts of our body and reinforce our abilities to move in a given way.

Testing physical movements is critical to understanding where we can safely go.

Micro Assessments Allow Us to Build Training into Any Free Time

Micro assessments do not require any fancy (read: expensive) workout equipment. Nor do they require weights or 3 sets of 10 to be effective. Instead, they rely on our curiosity about how our bodies can move and our desires to improve when we are able. The most important thing we can do is regularly try to activate different muscles to build our understanding of what happens when we move.

During these attempts to activate and move muscles along their available ranges of motion, I find that it is important to consciously think about and feel the muscles and how they connect to the rest of the body. I also like to incorporate physical contact with the muscles I am trying to activate and move so that I can reinforce the connection between what I am using and what is there, discussed more HERE.

Micro Assessment Examples:

Throughout the day, I regularly test my hands and feet. After all, these multi tools are the most likely body parts to push, pull and and walk me through the day, so I like to keep them running smoothly and assess whether they feel tight, sore, or weak in a given motion.

As I am an office worker (as I imagine many of you may be too), I find myself with lots of desk time. Although sitting at a desk in a suit and tie isn’t typically what one would consider when devising an optimal workout setup, this environment is perfectly suitable for an array of micro assessments.

While at my desk, I have ample opportunity to take my hands through their ranges of motion. I test full extension, pulling my fingers outward and opening my hand. I test how each finger moves individually, with a particular focus on the thumb, observing how they pull themselves outward, rotationally, and against lateral forces often provided by my other hand. When I check my feet, I test pulling my toes apart and opening up the feet to start. I test the ability to smoothly curl my toes, and how each toe can drive into the ground, delivering force throughout the chain of joints and through the tip of the toe.

It is important to recognize that these movement makers (namely, our hands and feet) combine a variety of bones to build their bases and more still to support each digit. Micro assessments provide us with the brief reprieve to feel how our left pointer finger moves across each of its joints in an extension and teach us what is bothering our right knee when we rotate our foot inward. So long as we take time to test and re-test our ability to move, we will continuously develop our body control and skills with micro assessments thought the day.

Movement is Expansive

We also have to consider that most of our body can move beyond one linear plane or direction. When we think of our fingers as only curling in or extending, we disregard the lateral precision movements they can provide, leading to an underdevelopment in these areas. Our elbows move largely along one axis, but their powering mechanism is largely controlled by the orientation of our hands and where we keep our shoulders.

Brief studies into powering each of these unique positions and movements we can make will help us better understand where our unique bodies can and like to move and how we can build for increased safety and longevity.

Micro Assessments provide us with regular brief opportunities to explore the many ways we can move. As we move, we are given the chance to learn more movement we might have never realized possible. Our studies can show us our many ways to move, making fitness more accessible in any environment.

We Can Learn to Move Anywhere

Many of us have seen what is described as office yoga, or movements designed to keep the body healthy while at a desk job working a conventional 9-5. I believe this strategy must be expanded and refined to help incorporate regular movement testing across all ranges of motion no matter where we spend our time.

Brief, regular movements like those in micro assessments help me incorporate movement studies into a regular work day. I am able to check on my right hand while reading or test how my knee feels with foot rotation, filling down time with self-contained assessments and exercise. I find that my work day is more productive generally when I take short breaks between tasks, and these breaks are the perfect opportunity to incorporate micro assessments into my day to day life. If done with relative frequency, micro assessments make it easy to complete a full workout during my work day.

Each movement we make is an opportunity to improve how we can navigate this world. If we take time to reflect on how we feel and study the details of our ability to move, we better prepare ourselves to do more of what we love.

To continue onto the next section, click HERE.

-G

Efficiently ELITE

At the end of the day, this site is designed to serve as a resource. Like many good resources, Efficiently ELITE is always seeking outside input to refine its content and improve its ability to help people take more autonomy over their ability to move. Do you have any suggestions? Please contact me and let me know below!