All I want for Christmas is …

The most valuable gift you can receive

What one thing, when accomplished, would solve your biggest pain and make everything else easier?

The focusing question. Do you know the answer?

And how can you achieve it in 2021?

First things first. Identify your needs, issues, pains or problems.

Call ‘em what you want. There are things that could be better in your life.

So think about your list of grievances, prioritize, take the top one and then ask

1. “Why can’t I solve this problem?”

2. or “Why haven’t I solved this problem so far?”

If it’s at the top of your list, it must be pretty important. But it’s still there, waiting to be solved.

What gives?

How does it all fit together? What makes it work?

Here’s my achilles heel as an example

I look fit. Fairly low body fat, pretty good muscle mass and have decent strength.

Most would call me healthy and fit without using “for an old guy” as a modifier.

But I have my issues.

• Poor mobility in neck, thoracic spine, low back, hips, shoulders, etc.

• Pinched nerves causing numbness in fingers and tingling down my neck and shoulders. This has been going on for years now.

• Constrained movement and associated pain. Sometimes I’ll be getting up off the floor and suddenly feel like someone stuck a knife into my back. Damn it’s painful!

The Backstory

With a time machine, you could retreat to a prior time where everything was pretty good. Your body was working as designed.

You might have to go back aways however.

Life happens. Injuries, too much career focus, not enough health focus, a lot of ass sitting, a lot of crap eating and you’ve created the new you.

What you may not realize is that each time you force your body to compensate for an issue, it figures out a new way to operate and then installs that new way as your default pattern.

It’s kind of like a mini evolution. Except you’re going backwards.

You hurt your back and gimp around slightly bent to one side; your hips and pelvis adjust so you can stand up straight; and your gait changes a bit because your pelvis is tilted.

After a while, this is your new default walking pattern even though it is suboptimal. Your brain learns it by repetition and then continues to fire all your muscles in the exact same sequence to repeat it.

Then you do a lot of sitting in the office, your hamstrings tighten up, you get anterior pelvic tilt and your stride shortens up. Another new pattern installed on top of the last “less than optimum” pattern.

That office sitting also juts your head forward, rounds your shoulders and the constant mouse action with your right hand gives your torso a little twist. You’re now a little crooked so things on the opposite side of your body tweak themselves to compensate.

This is your new, New Normal.

This goes on for decades. New suboptimal patterns on top of older suboptimal patterns.

Now you’re all effed up. And it’s really hard to sort out.

The Left-Brained Approach

I’m a logical thinker. I know I need to “do the mobility work” to address my issues.

And there are many mobility experts I follow. I’ve bought their stuff. It hasn’t quite solved my issues though I’ve gotten better in some regards.

Here’s the deal in a nutshell.

It takes a lot of work. And dedication. And commitment. And time.

My upper back and neck mobility program I’ve put together takes 40 minutes of so to get through. My execution is not the best.

It’s hard.

This might sound like your “Fat Loss” quandary. Or maybe why “Building Muscle” is so hard for you.

Mobility wise, I’m pretty jacked up from top to bottom. My left brain thinking believes there is a lynchpin or key area of focus that, upon addressing it, will make everything else easier.

My burning question is: “What should I do first?” I’ve got all these interacting, moving parts in disarray, which one is the key to fix first?

• Should I go top to bottom? Neck first, then shoulders, thoracic spine and down the chain?

• Or maybe bottom to top makes sense. All forces on your body are directed down through your feet into the ground. Maybe start there - ankles, knees, hips, etc.

• It could be the middle, the big X. Everything ties together in your core. So maybe it’s low back and hips first.

I certainly don’t know.

If a mobility gooroo stood up and shouted, “If you're all jacked up, here is the first thing you should fix”, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

That’d be my holy grail.

That’s all I want for Christmas this year.

I want specific direction to solve my biggest pain.

So how about you?

What one thing, when accomplished, would solve your biggest pain and make everything else easier?

What’s missing in your opinion?

Why is it so hard for you to solve a serious issue that you really want to solve?

What would simplify it for you?

What is your Holy Grail?

Please Comment, I’d Like to know