4 Pillars Deep Dive
Connection to Self, Part 2
I created Pillar to represent a paradigm shift in the way we approach Strength-Building.
So often, we come to the physical work of training strength with an assumption: My physical body is separate from my mental + emotional states.
I would never make assumptions about what you know or understand to be true about your body. Though I do know, with training, experience and education, that your mental + emotional states work with your physical body and are not separate from it.
You are the sum-total of those components. I’m afraid our cultural / health care programming has us thinking they exist in some sort of separate buckets. I understand why we specialize in treating them separately, though it seems the more we do, the further we get away from The Truth : All Systems work together. When 1 system is struggling, they all work together to seek balance.
It’s worth it to tune into our feedback loops (the 4 Pillars) and refine our capacity for each, with every rep we take, to become to most-informed, evolved + strong version of ourselves.
Interoception: Communication from Within
Interoception is the collection of senses providing information to you about the internal state of your body. This can be both conscious and subconscious. These sensory networks happen at the neural level and are what call “the tiny movements” your body makes.
Let’s think about it like this: Proprioception is the process of perceiving the world around you, transmitting that information to your CNS, then sending that information to the systems that create movement in space. Interoception is that process, but it initiates movements within you.
Is there more to it? Yes.
Is that an oversimplified/somewhat flawed comparison? Yes, but it’ll do just fine.
Though, I’m sparing us a crash-course in neuroscience. Which you all know pains me, because there’s nothing more I love to do than dive further into the science of Movement, Mrs. Frizzle-Style…
The Age of Distraction = The Age of Outsourcing our Health Choices
In my last post, I explained how distracted our world is. The barrage of information, the infinite choices, distractions, busy-ness of Life leaves us with “noisy blocks” in awareness of our own systems. As we pile on the distractions, we become more + more removed from our Intuition and overall ability to discern what is most-essential for us.
When these sensory systems become dulled by “noisy blocks”, we can significantly fracture our health. The sophisticated articulation between Proprioception + Interoception provides a roadmap of sorts, to any kind of communication blip (or breakdown) and can be very powerful in helping you determine root causes.
Take a look at this for help understanding some types of interoceptive signals. Think about whether you have them + potential root causes for them in your body:
When we read our internal signals, we begin to understand ourselves more clearly. Further, when we tune-in often, we can begin to see patterns. I often call patterns “postures”. Over time, we can begin to correlate the internal posturing with an outside postural pattern.
How you posture in this world has everything to do with how you move on the inside. I mean Posturing In all States (Physical, Mental + Emotional).
Here are some examples:
Actual Spinal Curvatures (what we typically think of as “posture”) and how that affects physical movement
Mood Styles//Energy Levels (amped up/hyper, fidgety, lethargic, sleepy, angry, sad, depressed, aggressive, passive, balanced, etc)
Level of Self-Care
States of tension vs. States of Ease
Prolonged sickness, pain or stress
How you posture within will always give clues about how you posture in the world. The more we bring awareness to these states of posturing, the more we can attune to our body’s signals. When we read those signals well, we can rearrange postural patterns. When we ignore (or do not even sense) the signals, we end up in some sort of chronic maladaptation. Those often become larger issues in-which we need outside support to treat (pain, weakness, hypertension, sleep deficit, diabetes, obesity, anxiety, cancer).
I’m certainly not saying we can avoid any + all health problems, especially as we age. What I am saying is the better-attuned we are, the more we can show up to any provider and chronicle very significant information, in order to get the best care/plan. Too often, we show up to providers either woefully under-informed of our own body’s condition or we show up with blind-eyes—relying on the provider to know what to do.
I’d go one step further and say we can greatly reduce our reliance on any provider when we sharpen our senses, tune into our selves and begin to connect the dots of our experiences in the body we inhabit, and make lifestyle adjustments, as necessary.
How is this specifically practiced in our Training?
We can use our 4 Pillars as ongoing feedback loops to inform how we build strength. Instead of “checking out” as we workout, we “tune in”, by design, to get very present with ourselves and specific elements of our current Phases.
Check out these ways we sharpen interoception in our programming:
Barefoot Training = GROUNDING
This is a BIG one. Not only are the feet designed to be high-communicators, the more we use that system, the more our Core Structure begins to strengthen. The more it strengthens, the better we articulate gross + fine motor skill, from the center. This allows for better use of our limbs and ultimately provides a structure that moves with greater ease. The Feet provide GROUNDING. And when we are able to ground, we are able to calibrate the full-body coordination of strength (physical, mental, emotional).
Breathwork to Begin
Paying attention to the movement of our Breath has deep affects on how we perceive everything — including movement — in our environment. We don’t breathe to wind down, we breathe to begin. It is the first movement we engage with every time we train. Stay tuned for a longer deep-dive into just breath mechanics/neuroscience in 2025, but for today’s purposes, it’s worth mentioning that breath as a movement is the way in-which our training considers breathing and becoming aware of how breath moves in our body, each time we train, is a way to focus our attention, sharpen our awareness + unite the body/mind into presence for our session.
Better breathing = stronger core structure, tool for regulating your nervous system, stronger everything
Making “Interoception-specific” Feedback Loops
Our program, by design, seeks to make us conscious of how well we “interocept”. We narrate this with intention. We seek to tune-in and listen to the body’s physical cues. When we do this, we sharpen our senses. This makes us move with better-strength and health.
4 Elements in Phase 1 that are specific feedback loops: The Ground, Your Breath, Your muscle chains, Your Stability and how it articulates
4 Elements in Phase 2 that are specific feedback loops: Your Energy Balance, Your Stack, Your reaction to Intensity via Volume + Tempo, Reaction to increased need for Stamina
Emphasis on Muscle Growth
Muscle is going to have its own deep-dive soon. There are SO MANY benefits to having it. I’ll focus on this: muscle acts as another significant communicator in the body. Without it, here’s what we’re missing:
Muscle-brain communication
Skeletal muscles release signaling proteins called myokines into the bloodstream, which affect the brain and other tissues. Myokines play a role in mood, learning, memory, sleep, and appetite regulation.
Muscle-nerve communication
The neuromuscular junction (NMJ) is a specialized connection between the peripheral nervous system and skeletal muscle fibers. The NMJ controls vital processes like breathing and voluntary movement.
Muscle-tissue communication
Skeletal muscles secrete messenger molecules that help them communicate with other tissues. For example, skeletal muscles release prostaglandins in response to injury.
Strength Training = Self Study Forever
Strength Training = Self Study. When we narrate it well, and track our progress via essential feedback loops (The 4 Pillars), we grow our capacity. That capacity leads to an upleveling in Full-Body Strength that never ends.
Here’s a common upleveling I see (and have experienced myself):
When we access strength in our movement, we feel empowered. When we feel empowered, we seek more input. That increased input stimulates muscle growth. When you have more muscle, you have better movement patterns inside + outside of your body, which reduces chronic pain. When you have more muscle, you typically eat more protein, which leads to mental clarity. Mental clarity creates new awarenesses. With that new awareness, you tune in even more to your body’s needs and begin to heal deep-seated trauma/unhealthy patterns and realize you have new ideas of what you want to accomplish next and so on…forever…
In Strength + Gratitude,
Kate
