The Skill Spiral™

Start where you are. Climb from there. Then keep coming back.

Movement exists on a continuum.

Strength. Mobility. Conditioning. Balance. Skill.

Whatever we're measuring, you already exist somewhere on that spectrum.

So we don't start with what you should be doing.

We start with what you're doing now.

If you currently strength train zero days per week, the answer probably isn't to suddenly train three. If you can hang for 10 seconds, we don't start by worrying about a two-minute hang.

Find where you are. Then do a little more.

Climb the ladder

Movement skills work the same way.

Take a squat.

I want to see the simplest version first—even with a professional athlete.

Bodyweight looks great?

Add load.

Still great?

Increase the challenge.

An experienced athlete might climb several rungs in a few minutes. Someone learning the skill might spend weeks or months moving through those same rungs.

That's okay.

We generally don't need to skip rungs.

We just climb them at the appropriate speed.

Every fundamental human movement can have its own Skill Ladder: squat, hinge, push, pull, carry, rotate, jump, get down to the floor and get back up.

Learn the skill. Then expand what you can do with it.

Then the ladder becomes a spiral

Here's where it gets interesting.

You eventually come back down.

Take the squat you've learned and change the stance.

Try it on one leg.

Add range. Add load. Add speed. Slow it way down.

Change the environment.

Now suddenly you're climbing again.

That's the Skill Spiral™.

We return to the same fundamental human skills again and again, each time changing the demand and learning something new.

And sometimes life sends us down the spiral.

Injury. Illness. Time away. Aging. Fatigue. A change in goals.

So we recalibrate, find the appropriate rung, and start climbing again.

There is no finish line.

The professional athlete, the teenager, and the 75-year-old are working with the same human equipment and many of the same fundamental skills.

They're simply at different places on the continuum—and moving through different parts of the spiral.

Start where you are. Find the next rung. Climb. Recalibrate. Repeat.