Finding Help When the Health and Fitness System Falls Short
Why real change can sometimes require more than procedures—and how to rethink the process
The traditional healthcare system plays a critical role in identifying and addressing urgent or serious medical conditions.
At the same time, many people find that for ongoing, complex, or chronic, non-emergency issues - where a change is desired in the body - like with nagging pain, losing weight, movement challenges, or long-term, preventative or quality-of-life health goals—the healthcare system (and the group fitness system) isn’t always equipped to provide the time, continuity, ongoing guidance, or personalization those challenges require.
The Magic Easy Button
Yet, most people assume that if they want to change something with regard to their body—they just haven’t found the right expert, or the right procedure, yet.
And that once they do they wil have come across the magic “easy button” that gives them the change they desire.
And while that certainly can be the answer in some situations, it isn’t always.
What if the problem isn’t you… and it’s not even the expert?
What if the real issue is that you’re using the wrong model?
The current healthcare and wellness system is designed around procedures—short, isolated sessions where something gets done to you.
It was never meant to be a long term learning model.
The procedure model works great for surgeries, massages, and cavity fillings.
It can even work for exercise if someone is leading you through it like the leader at a square dance or the childhood game “Simon Says.”
But this approach does not work well for many other situations, such as building strength, losing weight, dealing with nagging aches or restrictions, changing patterns, or figuring out what’s really going on in unique situations in a complex body.
For that, you need to switch your thinking to a different model,
one that includes your ongoing involvement, learning, and discovery, amid the changing circumstances of your life over weeks, months and sometimes even years.
After all, who is the person who learned the process of: brushing your teeth, taking a shower, and combing your hair?
You.
So, while it’s very tempting to think that all problems can be solved with a quick procedure, like when you get a massage and just lie there while the therapist works their magic, or when you get surgery and wake up feeling better, or even when you sit through a quick cavity filling -
Those siutations where the professional does most of the work, and you simply benefit from it, are specific situations -
When it comes to some problems (i.e. building strength, losing weight, moving better, fixing a nagging pain, or mastering a movement skill) it’s different.
These aren’t things that can be fixed in an hour with a standard, one-size-fits-all solution.
They require a process of detection, discovery, and experimentation.
The result you want is the RESULT of a process of learning.
The same way that a child is the result of a process of conception.
No process = no desired outcome.
So what does a process with the body that leads to resolution feel like?
It feels more like:
Learning a foreign language
Taking a hike over a mountain
Learning to play a musical instrument
As a process it does not have the same feel as a one-and-done scenario like turning a light switch on or off.
There’s a path. But that path can vary on different days. It’s nature, and it’s not frozen in time forever the same.
A procedure needs standardization.
A process needs to be able to investigate, explore and come up with novel insights and approaches.
Because there is great variability in people, many mind and body solutions, don’t present themselves with a simple answer you can look up in the back of the book.
While there are tried-and-true approaches, each person’s body and situation are unique.
That means it’s not just about following a simple procedure—it takes tinkering and adjusting as you go.
It’s more like trying on clothes.
You have to figure out what fits your unique body, what colors look good on you, what materials feel comfortable and which do not - you can’t just slap on anything that is listed as clothing in your size and expect to be happy with it.
Most importantly, unlike the single session model, for a longer process to be effective, it has to be structured with breaks and rest in between efforts to increase understanding and skill.
Just like you can’t cram an entire foreign language into your head in an hour or one lesson, you can’t do that with your body.
Processes like psychotherapy, physical therapy, exercise, and the use of movement require time—because the body itself only adapts when it is allowed to rest and recover in between periods of stimulation.
And all good coaching eventually returns the client to a state of independence.
You can’t rely on someone to follow you around and constantly figure out what’s going on.
It’s about discovering how your unique system works—and learning how to support and maintain it over time.
Even after years of experience, I still regularly employ coaches to help me tackle specific issues from increasing my performance, to balancing on my hands, to solving complex puzzles in my own physical make-up.
That’s because I know the value of both the process of working with a good coach, and what it takes to move through the complex territory of understanding the human body.
Having a good guide to accompany you through the process can make a world of difference.
It can can show you more clearly the challenge(s) you are really up against, decrease the time and struggle in getting the result you’re seeking, and sometimes be the difference between making progress and staying stuck for the rest of your life.
In trying to solve many types of mind and body problems improving your understanding and finding someone to help you figure things out is often a better model than the quest for the easy button, the perfect expert and the magical procedure.