The Real Goal Isn’t Perfect Technique. It’s Body Mastery.
By Dave Nixon
We’re excited to bring you this guest article by Dave Nixon. Dave is a performance coach redefining how Australians train their body and mind. With over 20 years in the industry, he’s the founder of Functional Fitness Australia and Alpha Theta – Mind Body Training and Retreats, helping people push limits and unlock their full potential. Author of Minding yourSELF and a former Men’s Muscle and Health contributor, Dave continues to inspire through his immersive retreats and coaching.
Mastering Your Body
When it comes to mastering your body, your goal should not be to do the correct technique in the gym.
I know that sounds like the right thing to do.
But it’s not.
It’s limiting in both mind and body.
Your goal is to use the gym to deepen your body awareness.
Or what Howard Gardner calls in Multiple Intelligence Theory (MIT): kinaesthetic intelligence.
There are numerous problems with pursuing the “right technique” such as:
- subjective based upon the coach and their experience
- you rarely do those movements in isolation outside of the gym
- they are rigid and restrictive (in isolation)
- what is “right” to one person’s perspective is “wrong” to someone else
- everything you do is wrong until it is deemed right by someone’s arbitrary standard
- the things you move around outside of the gym are rarely ever evenly weighted and picked up and put down on the spot
For example, the standard height for a barbell deadlift with Olympic style plates on is only at that height so that your head can fit under the barbell if it were to drop.
That’s the only reason. Safety.
Not everything you pick up outside of the gym is going to be at mid-shin height (depending on your height), evenly weighted, perfectly knurled (grippy), with a 25–28mm grip. Nor will it require you to pick it up and place it back down in the same spot.
This doesn’t make BB deadlifts redundant. Not by any stretch.
I literally own 30 barbells and teach deadlifts weekly.
The difference is this: my goal isn’t to teach them how to BB deadlift correctly. My goal is to help them deepen their kinaesthetic awareness.
If I were to teach them all of the “correct” cues to execute a BB deadlift then, in those conditions, they may execute that exercise to my standard.
Happy days.
That does not, however, teach them how to match tension to task to pick up and carry a 50kg pot plant upstairs.
I take a principle based approach to movement rather than a protocol based approach to exercise technique.
The principle based approach will dictate the protocols required. Hence why teaching a BB deadlift “correctly” is not incorrect. More so, it should be a by-product of the principle based approach.
This approach prevents co-dependency on the trainer and it builds genuine real-world strength and fitness for activities you do outside of the gym (life-centric approach).
Not only that, it yields real long-term investment by deepening your connection to your body. That you have for life.
Rather than a transactional experience of just being told “right or wrong,” “good or bad.”
One is a student, the other is a slave.
I spoke about this as Group 1 and Group 2 in my TEDx Talk. Watch here.
So the real goal here isn’t about doing the exercise correctly.
The real goal here is to deepen your kinaesthetic awareness and move efficiently. For good.
Movement is a skill to deepen rather than an exercise to get right or wrong.
That black and white thinking is important early in the journey but, with time, it becomes restrictive.
In all physical endeavours, you must learn the rules and roles. The rights and wrongs.
Martial arts, football, weightlifting. The list goes on.
But as you develop through the stages, individual expression, problem solving, preference, and experience begins to come through.
This is the path to mastery.
So the black and white thinking is a necessary stage. At the beginning.
Remember, people develop through stages, not ages.
When it comes to the body, they develop through the stages of Safe (Base), Strong (Flow), Sexy (Peak).
The pre-stage for Body is Slave.
This is because they either find doing anything physical a complete chore or they’re in a slave mentality.
“I’m back for more punishment.”
This isn’t punishment. This is freedom.
Being a slave to your body’s restrictions is punishment.
The Stages of Development
As for Safe, Strong, and Sexy, there are key markers to each stage that will give you an indication of where you and others may be at.
Safe is also known as ‘Gross’, as in general.
At this stage, the individual builds general awareness of their body.
They have a general sense of warmth, pain, discomfort, muscle engagement, and body control. The words they use to explain their sensations are also general in nature.
“This muscle here hurts.”
“I think I can feel it in the front of my legs.”
“My back pulls up sore after deadlifts.”
Once again, just general terms. Neither good nor bad, but a necessary stage.
Strong is also known as ‘Subtle’.
They begin to build subtle awareness of their body and its sensations. They know when they do an exercise that used to give them pain, they can squeeze or shift their body in a certain way and no longer get that pain.
They start to be more descriptive in their language of their body and its parts. They are better able to prepare their body and know what they need to do to move well.
Sexy is also known as ‘Causal’.
They begin to see the causal relationship within all things, not just their body.
They know that as a part-time bookkeeper, the end of financial year brings about more stressful work, which (whilst during school holidays) means later nights in front of the computer, less sleep, and poorer eating habits.
They also know that this can have (and has had) a direct correlation to how tight they feel in their hips, glutes (meds), and hip flexors.
They also know if they try and go to the gym and just exercise with the same intensity (or to release frustration) that they often tweak their lower back.
They begin to see the causal relationship between it all.
Athletes at the highest level know this.
And everyday athletes have access to the same level of insight if they wish.
The 4 Components of Mastery
There are 4 main components you need to master when developing through the stages of Move–Body.
Your nervous system
- mobilisation towards and away
- stillness towards and away
Your breath
- upregulate
- downregulate
Your training (workout)
- hinge
- squat
- lunge
- carry/gait
- pull
- push
- throw
- jump
Your recovery (work-in)
- sauna
- cold plunge
- sleep
- non-sleep deep rest (NSDR)
- nutrition
Pursue mastery and self-understanding in these 4 areas if you want real-world strength and fitness that you keep. For good.
The reason being is that what your body needs in your 20s is different in your 30s, and 40s, and beyond.
So the real investment isn’t just in exercising or being told how to do it “correctly.”
The real investment is being able to answer the below question:
“How do I know (on the inside) that I am moving safe, well, and with kinaesthetic intent?”
Principles for Progress
In order to do this, there are a few principles we need to take on.
Below are a few that are fundamental for this positive shift.
There is no finish line
When it comes to mastery of anything (painting, martial arts, football, singing) there is no finish line.
Mastery is a continual dance (and sometimes wrestle) with you, your past, and your potential.
Always a student
The biggest student at a martial arts dojo is usually the black belt teacher.
You are forever the student. And the teacher.
Teach, don’t tell
This is mostly from a coaching standpoint, but ultimately speaks to an underlying principle that develops people from a co-dependent stage to an interdependent stage.
That principle is education.
From dependent to deepen
Each workout is an opportunity for a deeper connection to your body.
Not just dependence on an external factor such as a trainer, program, or environment.
Intensity x Intelligence
Too much intensity isn’t intelligent, and too much intelligence will rule out intensity.
You want a beautiful dance of intensity and intelligence that allows you to get what you need out of a workout or recovery based on your current landscape and life conditions.
Intention drives attention
Set a clear intention for your workout or recovery before starting.
As your mind goes to drift (and it will) use your intention as an anchor to return to.
Without a conscious intention, you will become victim to whatever demands your attention.
Real or not.
Protocols
You must have protocols and procedures to follow that allow you to not only take on these perspectives, but to also put them into practice so you can embed them into your normal day to day.
Below are a few simple protocols based off the above principles you can implement straight away:
Connect to the kinaesthetic
To be a student of movement and your body, you need to place your attention on your body.
Start by feeling your feet on the ground or whatever other surface you’re on.
Become intimate (not that kind) with each internal detail of your movement within your warm-up sets.
Load your learning
We learn through our senses. All of them.
We may think or feel that we are a visual learner when in reality, it is just a preference.
If a self-claimed visual learner became blind, would they stop learning?
To enhance this learning tool, film your training.
But for one purpose: calibration.
“When it feels like this, it looks like that.”
Integrate feedback
You still want external feedback, just not in place of internal feedback.
You actually want both.
You want to integrate a trusted person’s external feedback with your own and then cross-reference that with the video as mentioned above.
Rate of pre-emptive intensity
As you warm up, check in with yourself.
How does your body feel?
Are there certain parts that are tighter than normal?
What are your energy levels like?
Out of 100, what percentage do you have to give this workout today?
What do you want to get out of today’s workout?
Use the warm-up as a check-in so you can approach the workout with a level of intensity that is relevant for you and your life conditions today.
Cue 1–2
Choose one or two things max to pay attention to.
This will become your intention for your exercise or workout. That’s it.
It’s called ‘training’ so pick what it actually is that you’re training today.
Is it your breath?
Your mind-muscle connection to your glutes?
Is it leaning into a higher than normal level of intensity and holding on?
This intention has to be something within your control.
It has to be either your thoughts, feelings, behaviours, or speech.
This training approach is not something you win or get a medal for.
Every single person who has mastered a movement skill has moved through the stages of Safe, Strong, and Sexy.
Anyone who looks to fast-track it and skips a stage will ultimately fall back to their default.
We don’t rise to the occasion, we fall to our training.
And if you approach your training with these principles in mind and protocols in hand, you will develop through these stages over time.
That’s the beauty of it.
It will take time.
All good things do.
That’s what makes them good.
Don’t just experience it as a peak state, own it as a peak stage.
That aside, regardless of your training, keep going.
Whether in a gym, on the tennis court, or in the surf, keep leaning in.
If it’s a path worth going down, then It’s a path worth stumbling down.
That’s it from me.
Big love,
Dx
P.S. Once again, I just want to thank you for being here and reading this far.
This is 20 years of a body of work I am sharing with the world in hope that it improves the personal legacies of everyone reading it!
Appreciate you!
About the Author, Dave Nixon
Dave Nixon is a leading Australian health and fitness professional with over 20 years in the industry. He’s the founder of Functional Fitness Australia and Alpha Theta – Mind Body Training and Retreats, helping people unlock their full physical and mental potential through seminars, retreats, and immersive training.
A former contributor to Men’s Muscle and Health and author of Minding yourSELF, Dave has also produced over 800 podcasts across Mood Prep and Alpha Theta Flow. His unique career includes a 16-week journey across the USA visiting 42 gyms while podcasting and writing for major publications.
Today, Dave continues to run Functional Fitness Australia while hosting retreats, 24-hour immersions, and completing his next book.