From Stroke to Strength - Part Four
Anders Varner breaks down the results of Phill Arrington's stroke recovery. After 6 weeks and 12 personal training sessions, Phil gained a ton of coordination and strength, is back to playing golf, and is on his way to living a full, healthy life.
In 2011, I discovered a book by Daniel Coyle called The Talent Code. As soon as I finished the book it instantly became the most important thing I had ever read. The book delivers a scientific explanation and endless stories of developing learning patterns, both physical and mental, and focuses on the art of deep practice.
Deep practice is described as intense concentration in the process of mastering a skill. If you come to the gym, half ass it, and talk to your friends 90% of the time, that is not deep practice. We still love you, but you are not intensely focused on learning skills. If you learn Olympic lifting by spending a full year only snatching from the hang, that is deep practice. Deep practice is not glamorous but it is necessary in the process of mastery.
The science behind the theory is found in tiny little information packets called myelin. Our body is flooded by these information packets. Every single movement you do, from typing to squatting, requires your brain to deposit myelin in a highway from your brain to your extremities. The more you practice a specific movement the more myelin is distributed on the internal highway. As the highway connects all of the myelin, the connectivity from brain to extremity makes simple tasks like raising your hand seem innate.
The truth is, when you are a kid, you learn to raise your hand. But, you do it so often, and there is so much myelin connecting brain to arm, that you do not have to actually think about the movement, it just happens. The pattern is the same whether you are raising your hand, typing, or becoming a piano virtuoso. Much of the 10,000 hour rule involving mastery (which actually isn’t true) comes from the study of myelin.
When Phil Arrington had a stroke two months ago I started my research. Not only is having a stroke incredibly scary but the recovery can be very long and some victims are never able to get back to their pre-stroke selves. In a stroke, a blood clot in the brain wipes out almost all of the connectivity from the brain to the body. For many, this can lead to speech impediments, loss of coordination, and the list gets worse from there. Depending on the severity of the stroke the effects can last a lifetime and often result in instant death.
When Phil and I started working together I saw that the stroke had severely limited the left side of his body. Phil walked with a slight limp, his speech was slightly slurred, and most of his motor patterns had vanished. I wanted to test my theory that if we engaged in 12 hours of deep practice, performed high level coordination drills, and add basic strength training principles; we could quickly get him back to his pre-stroke self. When we started I thought getting him back to 70% would be a victory. Not to ruin the story but we crushed that.
Method
At the beginning of the two months we tested four things: coordination, balance, and upper body pulling and pushing mechanics. We practiced coordination using an agility ladder. These footwork drills can be scaled from simple to very difficult. The agility ladder is a great tool because it forces the athlete to be very accurate with their foot placement. The high level of accuracy needed to get through the drills forces the brain to intensely focus and soaks the body in myelin. As simple drills became easy we added complexity to create even more connectivity from brain to extremity.
For balance we used the single leg split squat. This is a difficult movement due to the balance requirements on top of having the necessary strength to squat on one leg. For upper body strength and coordination we used the push up and pull up as our base. These movements are fantastic at testing proper joint function, strength, and coordination through loading sequences. “Loading sequence” is merely the ability for the athlete to load through large joints (shoulders in the upper body and hips in lower body) to smaller joints such as the elbows, knees, wrists, and ankles.
Results
With each week came astounding results. This theory of flooding the body with myelin, adding complexity, and training like an athlete was working. Phil went from being unable to make it through simple coordination drills to flying through complex movements. In our initial testing he was unable to correctly perform split squats and after 12 personal training sessions he was doing them to a four inch deficit with additional weight. Initially, he was unable to perform a proper push up. Two months later he was performing them with ease and his ability to pull increased significantly.
I am not a doctor. I do however have a slightly above average understanding of how the brain works, how people learn things, and how the human animal is supposed to move. I operate on a belief system that everything is trainable through hard work and dedication. The system is easy; study enough to have quality inputs, examine the feedback, be flexible, and adjust the plan as needed to get the results you are looking for. Through intense, concentrated practice, anyone can become anything; you just have to find out why it is important to you and then chase it with everything you have. Phil is one of the most inspiring people I have come across. If you were to ask him before the stroke, he probably would have told you he was a pretty normal guy. Well, two months later I doubt he would echo that sentiment. We had a lot of breakthroughs over our training sessions but none are as important as the confidence gained through overcoming insurmountable odds. No matter what life deals you, you have to keep going, you have to keep pushing, and you have to wake up and put your best foot forward.
I want to thank Phil for allowing me the opportunity of working with him in this process. I am positive he thought I was nuts on day one when we broke out an agility ladder. There is no greater honor than earning someone’s trust. Thank you for trusting me and letting me into your life. I think we have both learned a ton from each other and it has been one of those experiences that I am very proud to be a part of.
I hope everyone enjoyed following this process. If you know of anyone that could benefit from this information, please share this story, or have them contact us.
