Movement Pillar - Why We Have Brains

Contributed By Coach Tommy

In the this ted talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s0CpRfyYp8, Daniel Wolpert gives us a glimpse of what some of the main functions of the brain are and how our cognitive development as a species is focused around our necessity for movement. This seems like it may be crazy but when analyzed in everyday life you notice that without movement we really aren't capable of anything. When we look at the oldest parts of the brain or "reptilian brain" we are talking about the brain stem and cerebellum. The cerebellum is where the motor cortex is. This is responsible for human movement. Now imagine this very old part of the brain, that is also responsible for your ability to interact with the world, has some corrupted files in it.

From infancy you learned all these patterns and timed them to cause locomotion. Through trial and error your brain figured out what was the most efficient way to move and stored them.  When we are trying to improve technique or efficiency, what we ultimately are trying to do is change the brain.  A good question would be "is there a way to check to see how my movement is?" "Has it been altered or am I still able to perform?"  The FMS is a great tool and starting point to establish a baseline and rule out things that can be detrimental.  We will go over in more detail in our upcoming content about screening and the FMS.