The body · 1 min read
Strength and access
Having the strength for a movement and being able to reach it are not the same thing.
Two people can do the same exercise in completely different ways. One gets there by organising the whole body; the other gets there by working around a part they can't quite find. On the outside both "did the squat". On the inside, something very different happened.
I've come to think of this as the difference between strength and access. Strength is the capacity. Access is being able to perceive it, coordinate it and use it on purpose.
When more effort isn't the answer
If access is the missing piece, pushing harder often makes things worse. The body does what it already knows, only with more tension. Sometimes the useful move is the opposite: slow down, shrink the range, and come back to the place where you can still feel what you're doing.
Do not move farther than awareness can accompany you.
From there we widen the range, add load, add speed. Not as a rule I apply mechanically, but as a direction.
Small experiments
In practice that means changing one thing at a time. Where your foot meets the floor. Where your attention goes. How fast you lower. Then we ask simple questions: what changed? How did it feel? Can you find it again?
A failed attempt isn't a failure. It's information.
What this is not
"Access" is a practical working idea, not a diagnosis. Pain and movement have many influences, and when something needs medical assessment, that comes first. But a lot of what people believe is simply "unavailable" to them turns out to be a movement they haven't yet learned to find.
Sometimes the next step isn't more capacity. It's learning to use what's already there.