Simple Sunday XI

[Barrett Dorko]

On March 13th of 2011 I wrote Simple Sunday X, what I assumed would be be the last in a series of posts devoted to the subject of simplifying the complex nature of therapy.

But then I got a cartoon in my email, and this came from that:

Hugh MacLeod wrote beneath a cartoon mailed to many this week (The Cartoon was titled Complexity Never Ends):

As I tried to express in this cartoon, even the initial definitions of “complexity” are hard to understand. It all revolves around the knowledge that complexity falls on a system and how that system works, be it disorganized or otherwise.

Whether a system or group has a small or large number of working elements (people, products, ideals...etc.) is irrelevant, because when the human mind is involved, it’s GOING to be complex. It would be a totally different story if we were talking numbers and variables.

The thing is that complexity is completely natural, just look at fractals, their beauty is in their complexity. It is everywhere--in every molecule and element, no matter how simple we may perceive it to be. The problem begins when we try to rationalize it and defeat it.

Our challenge every day is in how we can make the complex look simple - the best design, user interface, cartoons, and machines do this seamlessly.

Our very existence is a product of it. So, I say, just roll with it.

I continually work to simplify the information that comes with increasing frequency and complexity these days. Patients seem to like this.

Therapists, in my experience, rarely sit still for it.

[Ken Jakalski]

Hi Barrett!

I continually work to simplify the information that comes with increasing frequency and complexity these days. Patients seem to like this.

Therapists, in my experience, rarely sit still for it.

I find parallels to this in the coaching world.

The following represents the kind of comments we so often hear over on our site:

"My concern for this year is related to her injuries. Her lifting protocol is still pretty much the same. Her lifting routine as a freshman consisted of a little bit of everything: squats, lunges, power cleans, curls, triceps extentions, etc. No heavy weights involved. She has been lifting and running since the first day of school because all the track athletes are required to take a track and field class. Because of this class, now that track and field has now started, she is in great shape. But the athletes, in my opinion, are being trained as if the have no base. Her workouts are extremely hard: multiple stadium stairs and hill sprints are making up the majority of her practices, along with the good old repeat 200's. She has also given in to the constant pressure to change her running form."

Ironically, the locomotion reserachers are the ones whose work seems to be reducing the complex to what they refer to as "Big Picture Mechancis," yet it's the trainers and coaches who appear to be the ones making up "gibberish" (as one reserached noted) and turning training into a gunked up mess.

For almost everything you write about current PT I keep finding parallels in the coaching world.

Maybe I short be telling my athletes that track is far more complex than simply running fast and turning left. But I like that.