I think I'm becoming a believer

[No idea why this is in boldface. I thought the problem had gone away. On my edit screen, and every time I hit "preview," the post is in normal font. Dafuck?]

Have you ever heard of the "McGill Big Three" for conditioning your core? I'm tempted to exaggerate and say that this is all the Pilates you'll ever need, but I'm pretty sure some Pilates asshole reading my blog will immediately slap me down. So I'll be more sober: in Week 2 of my ten-week physical-training project, I finally started doing the McGill Big Three. I can't do the exercises that well yet, but after having clumsily attempted them, I can already see the trendline should I continue to do the Big Three faithfully.

So who is Professor Stuart McGill, and what is/are the McGill Big Three? Briefly, Stuart McGill is a Canadian exercise physiotherapist and kinesiologist (movement specialist) who is an expert on spinal mechanics, maybe the expert on the subject. I don't know whether he even subscribes to Pilates, but much of what he does is help people with back problems. Over the course of his research and the helping of thousands of patients, he developed what is now called the McGill Big Three, i.e., three exercises designed to minimize back pain and strengthen the core, which is basically the complex of muscles surrounding the torso—back, sides, and front, not including the pecs (front) or the lats (back) but definitely including the glutes. All three of these exercises emphasize the importance of core bracing, and they are normally presented in this order:

1. Modified Curl-up
2. Side Plank
3. Bird Dog

Here's a video explaining the McGill Big Three by Dr. Aaron Horschig of the goofily named YouTube channel Squat University. Don't be fooled by the silly name, though: this guy's got great advice when it comes to physical therapy and weightlifting form, and he always comes back to the McGill Big Three, for which he has a lot of videos. I'm old enough, now, to have back pain fairly frequently and to worry about hurting myself during exercise, so I've been following Dr. Horschig's advice as I slowly progress in my own humble training (baby steps for now). While it's true that doing the Big Three with a frozen shoulder is somewhat painful, it's also true when Horschig says, in the linked video, that if you do the Big Three sequence properly, you ought to work up a sweat. I did. And not just because I'm a naturally sweaty guy, either. Upshot: Horschig and McGill have me convinced, and the McGill Big Three is now a part of my ever-increasing exercise routine (I add one exercise per category per week*). It's safe to say that I've quickly become a believer. What I need to do now is video myself doing these exercises so I can analyze my form and correct what I'm doing wrong in order not to form and reinforce any bad habits. It's the same as when you're learning a language. Drop the bad habits early. Come to think of it, that's good advice for life in general.

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*By "category," I mean the general types of activities I'm engaging in when I exercise: bodyweight calisthenics, dumbbells, elastic bands, heavy clubs, animal flow, kettlebells, and staircase training. For most of these categories, except for the stairs, I'm adding one new exercise per week for a total of five or six per week. Animal flow isn't going very well because of my left shoulder, but I'm hoping that, once the shoulder gets better and is able to hold more weight, the flow will improve. I'm also curious about rope flow, which is another trendy thing these days. I used to do my own improv version of rope flow without even knowing what it was back when I was young: once you start pretending to be a martial artist and twirling two sticks, the next logical step is to see whether you can persuade a long rope to move in roughly the same way. I may want to get back into that, but we'll see. I've got a lot of activities that I'm doing already. But rope flow is a more tranquil, almost taiqi version of what many boxers do when they skip rope. And like primal flow and animal flow, once you learn the basic moves, you're free to make millions of permutations and combinations.