The German phrase **Spukhafte Fernwirkung** was Einstein's term for "spooky action at a distance" in quantum physics. Here, it gets borrowed for something lifters and coaches run into all the time: the body doesn't always keep cause and effect in the same place.
A Coaching Mystery
The first time I noticed it, I chalked it up to coincidence.
By the tenth time, that excuse wore thin.
During my years as a strength coach, lower-body days were where I paid the closest attention. Squats, pulls, anything that loaded a lot of muscle at once—that's where you find out who you're really coaching.
The progressions were mapped out. The next week's numbers were already on paper. But every now and then, someone would blow right past them.
The squat moved faster than expected.
The reps looked easier than expected.
They weren't just on track—they were sprinting ahead of my plan.
As a coach, you want the session to meet the lifter—push them hard enough that they feel it, not just check a box. On those days, it felt like they had more in the tank than I'd budgeted for. They weren't just keeping up with the program; they were outgrowing it in real time.
Over time, a pattern showed up: when someone crushed lower-body work beyond expectations, I often ended up bumping future upper-body loads too.
Not because they'd trained upper body harder.
Not because the upper-body program changed.
Because their squat performance was telling me the whole system was further along than the spreadsheet thought it was.
What made it even stranger was that I didn't see the same thing in reverse. A big upper-body day didn't reliably predict a big squat day.
The signal mostly seemed to travel one way.
The legs told me more about the lifter than the upper body did.
Then It Happened to Me
Years later, I got to see the other side of this the hard way.
During a karate tournament, I ruptured my right quadriceps tendon.
I expected that to wreck my leg. What surprised me was how much it seemed to wreck almost everything.
Nearly every lift dropped.
My bench press eventually fell by roughly 100 pounds from its peak and never fully returned.
Was the tendon rupture solely responsible? Probably not. Age, training volume, shoulder issues, and real life all piled on. But the experience forced a question that had been building for years anyway:
How connected is the human body, really?
Einstein's Strange Phrase
Physicists have a word for this sort of thing: **Spukhafte Fernwirkung**.
Einstein used it to complain about quantum mechanics—specifically, an effect where two particles seemed to influence each other instantly, no matter how far apart they were.
This isn't a quantum physics article. The point is simpler: some systems don't keep cause and effect neatly in the same location.
The human body seems to have its own version.
Not quantum. Biological.
Over the years, the same pattern kept showing up:
- A stronger lower body seemed to predict broader strength gains.
- A shoulder problem sometimes calmed down when we worked on pecs and lats.
- A painful patellar tendon—and pain that felt like it sat under the kneecap—often responded to a stretch aimed higher up the chain.
- A pressure point on the ear seemed to change ankle mobility.
- A swollen joint could weaken a muscle that was otherwise structurally fine.
Again and again, the body refused to behave like a pile of isolated parts. It behaved like a system.
That's good when it works in your favor. It's a headache when it doesn't.
The Mechanic's Mistake
Most people think about their body the way a mechanic thinks about a car.
If the front left tire is squeaking, the problem must be in the front left tire.
The body doesn't always play that game.
Sometimes the answer is exactly where you think it is.
Sometimes it isn't.
Some of the most important coaching lessons came from the times it wasn't.
"The location of the symptom is not always the location of the solution."
Mystery #1: Stronger Legs, Stronger Everything
### The Observation
When athletes significantly exceeded expectations on lower-body days, I often quietly bumped their future upper-body numbers.
The squats told me they were further along than the spreadsheet said. They weren't just following the program; they were outrunning it.
### Why It's Weird
Nothing magical had happened to their upper body.
They hadn't suddenly added ten sets of bench. There wasn't a secret lat routine. The upper-body template hadn't changed.
Yet the whole lifter seemed to be progressing, not just their legs.
### What the Research Says
Strength gains aren't only about muscle size. Early on, a lot of progress is neural: better motor-unit recruitment, better coordination, less braking on force production.
There's also cross-education: train one limb hard and the opposite, untrained limb gets stronger through nervous-system changes alone. The effect isn't huge, but it proves a point—the nervous system doesn't care about your "chest day/leg day" borders.
Big lower-body days throw a strong global signal at the body. You're loading a ton of muscle at once, grinding through hard sets, and racking up metabolic stress. Hard squats don't just torch your quads; they light up your whole system.
### Why It Matters
Strength is not just a property of a muscle.
Strength is a skill of the entire system.
When your heaviest, most system-demanding lifts suddenly jump, it's often a sign that the rest of you is further along than you thought.
Mystery #2: The Injury That Changed Everything
The Observation
After the quad tendon rupture, nearly every lift got worse.
The injury was local. The consequences felt systemic.
Why It's Weird
On paper, a torn tendon in the leg shouldn't have much to say about a bench press.
Yet anyone who has had a major injury knows the feeling: confidence changes, movement changes, strength changes everywhere, not just at the damaged spot.
### What the Research Says
There's a concept called arthrogenic muscle inhibition: when a joint is injured or swollen, the nervous system can throttle muscle output around it even if the muscle tissue looks fine. Pain adds another layer, changing movement strategies and force production. The body doesn't just "turn muscles off"; it reshuffles load, changes timing, and picks different muscles to trust.
Similar patterns show up after things like ACL surgery and ankle sprains: strength and control deficits appear in places that were never directly injured.
### Why It Matters
Weakness is not always a strength problem.
Sometimes it's a communication problem.
If you only look at the damaged tissue and ignore how the nervous system is reacting, you're missing half the story.
Mystery #3: The VMO That Changed the Squat
### The Observation
Using Charles Poliquin's PIMST techniques, athletes would sometimes show immediate changes in how their knees tracked during squats.
Valgus dropped.
The squat looked cleaner.
They often came out of the hole with more authority.
### Why It's Weird
No muscle was built in sixty seconds.
### What the Research Says
Change the sensory input, and the nervous system can change the motor output almost immediately. Give the body a better sense of position, stability, or threat level, and it may start recruiting muscles differently and using strength it already had but wasn't accessing.
It can look like a magic VMO trick, but the real change is in what the nervous system is willing to do with the strength that's already there.
### Why It Matters
Sometimes performance improves because access improves, not because strength increases.
"No muscle was built in sixty seconds. Something else changed."
Mystery #4: The Ear That Changed the Ankle
### The Observation
Some athletes with viciously tight calves struggled to get enough forward shin angle in their squat.
Using auricular pressure-point techniques from the PIMST system, I occasionally saw immediate changes in ankle mobility and squat mechanics.
The athletes had their own way of putting it:
"Coach Mike, do that voodoo thing on my ear again."
### Why It's Weird
The "intervention" happened up at the ear.
The change showed up at the ankle.
### What the Research Says
Sensory input shapes muscle tone and movement strategy. Change what the nervous system is feeling—pressure, stretch, pain, threat—and it may reorganize how it moves elsewhere.
Whether the exact point on the ear matters or not, the principle stands: change input in one place, and output somewhere else can change.
### Why It Matters
The nervous system can re-write movement far faster than tissue can remodel.
You don't have to believe in voodoo to accept that.
Mystery #5: The Shoulder That Refused to Act Like a Shoulder
### The Observation
A lot of people walked in pointing straight at their AC joint as the source of shoulder pain.
But some of the biggest improvements came when we focused on the pectorals and lats.
When I spent time working on and stretching those, the way their shoulder moved often changed—and so did the stress they felt at the AC joint.
### Why It's Weird
We weren't poking the painful joint.
We weren't doing "AC joint exercises."
Yet the AC joint symptoms changed anyway.
### What the Research Says
The idea of regional interdependence says that dysfunction in one region can contribute to pain or problems somewhere else. In the shoulder, tight or overactive pecs, lats, and even the thoracic spine can change how the scapula and humerus move, which changes the loading at the joints that hurt.
Sometimes the joint that's screaming is just the weakest link in a chain being pulled from somewhere else.
### Why It Matters
The place that hurts isn't always the place that's broken.
If you only attack the sore spot, you might miss the structures that are causing it to get overloaded in the first place.
Mystery #6: The Patellar Tendon That Needed a Rectus Femoris Stretch
### The Observation
One of the most common complaints among athletes was pain at the patellar tendon. Others described a deeper ache that felt like it lived behind the kneecap.
Many had already seen doctors, physical therapists, athletic trainers, or other professionals before they walked into my gym.
I'm not claiming I discovered anything new. Plenty of good therapists understand the role of the rectus femoris. What surprised me was how many of the specific athletes standing in front of me had never been shown how to stretch it properly.
Over and over, a well-done rectus femoris stretch produced immediate changes in comfort and movement—not just at the patellar tendon, but also for that "under the kneecap" pain.
My favorite part was the sequence that followed.
They'd stand up.
Walk around.
Do a squat.
Pause.
Then they'd look back at me with that "What just happened?" face.
For some, it was the first meaningful change they'd felt in a long time.
### Why It's Weird
The pain lived at the patellar tendon or somewhere behind the kneecap.
The intervention was aimed higher up the chain.
### What the Research Says
The rectus femoris is a two-joint muscle. It crosses both the hip and the knee. If you want to actually lengthen it, you have to deal with both joints at the same time: knee flexed, hip extended, femur behind the body.
Stretch only one end of a two-joint muscle and you get a different result.
A simple rule falls out of that: when a two-joint muscle is involved, assume that stretching only one joint is leaving part of the problem untouched.
### Why It Matters
The lesson wasn't "all patellar tendon pain comes from the rectus femoris."
The lesson was that the painful structure isn't always the only structure worth examining.
Sometimes the answer is farther up the chain.
The Rehab Lesson I Didn't Fully Understand
When I was the one in rehab, I don't remember anyone putting much emphasis on aggressively training the healthy side.
Later, when I coached athletes coming back from injuries, I almost always trained both sides.
Part of that was common sense. Part of it was the running joke: if we only train one leg, eventually you're going to walk in circles.
At the time, I wasn't thinking about cross-education. I just believed the healthy side should keep getting stronger while the injured side caught up.
Looking back, that instinct probably did more good than I realized. Training one limb can help maintain or even improve strength on the other side through neural carryover. Once again, the nervous system doesn't stay in its lane.
What Coaches Saw Before Researchers
Long before terms like cross-education, arthrogenic muscle inhibition, regional interdependence, myokines, pain adaptation, or modern motor control theory filtered into articles and textbooks, coaches were already seeing the effects.
The observations came first.
The explanations showed up later.
Final Thoughts
The point here isn't that every weird observation is true.
And it's definitely not that every trick works.
The point is that in the body, cause and effect don't always share an address.
- A stronger lower body may signal broader adaptation.
- A swollen joint may weaken a "healthy" muscle.
- A shoulder problem may calm down when you work somewhere else.
- A painful tendon may change when you address a muscle higher up the chain.
- Pain that feels like it lives underneath the kneecap may respond to a stretch that never touches the kneecap at all.
The body keeps challenging the idea that symptoms and solutions have to live in the same place.
That's the body's **Spukhafte Fernwirkung**.
Not quantum.
Biological.
And for lifters and coaches who care about both performance and durability, understanding that might be one of the most important skills they ever develop.
References
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- Lee M, Carroll TJ. Cross-education: possible mechanisms for the contralateral effects of unilateral resistance training. *Sports Med.* 2007;37(1):1-14.
- Rice DA, McNair PJ. Quadriceps arthrogenic muscle inhibition: neural mechanisms and treatment perspectives. *Semin Arthritis Rheum.* 2010;40(3):250-266.
- Hart JM, Pietrosimone B, Hertel J, Ingersoll CD. Quadriceps activation following knee injuries: a systematic review. *J Athl Train.* 2010;45(1):87-97.
- Hodges PW, Tucker K. Moving differently in pain: a new theory to explain the adaptation to pain. *Pain.* 2011;152(3 Suppl):S90-S98.
- Severinsen MCK, Pedersen BK. Muscle-organ crosstalk: the emerging roles of myokines. *Endocr Rev.* 2020;41(4):594-609.
- Wainner RS, Whitman JM, Cleland JA, Flynn TW. Regional interdependence: a musculoskeletal examination model whose time has come. *J Orthop Sports Phys Ther.* 2007;37(11):658-660.
- Kraemer WJ, Ratamess NA. Hormonal responses and adaptations to resistance exercise and training. *Sports Med.* 2005;35(4):339-361.
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