Fitlosophy: 5 Thoughts That Apply to Fitness
Though philosophy and rhetoric may not fall into the category of a science, there is no doubt that philosophical principles can improve the efficacy of your training, like a science would. While some quotes of previous generations wisest minds may not transfer to compound exercises as well as relationships, philosophical wisdom can help troubleshoot failing training routines. As an ongoing series of Fitlosophy journal entries, here are Trainathlon's first five.
1. If he prepares to defend everywhere, everywhere will be weak. -Sun Tzu
Crossfit has exploded across the globe. The fitness protocol is built on a well-rounded selection of skills and operational tasks, used to determine a champion. To win, a crossfit athlete will have to have a broad array of skills and capabilities, and highly excel, or maintain consistent performance at each one of the tasks. Tasks include whole or parts of Olympic Lifts, power lifts, gymnastics, running, and other branded endurance workouts like Concept 2 rowing or skiing. While it is true that being a well-rounded athlete can have great benefits to performance and health, programming for a well-rounded athlete can often go awry.
This brings us to the wisdom laid out in Sun Tzu's Art of War. If you only have so much time, energy, and ability to recover from training sessions, you need to put a significant focus on one aspect of your training. Sun Tzu's war planning is the ancient version of our "Jack of all trades, master of none." Like planning for attacks from different regions of an empire, training should prepare people for a specific demand. The Jack of all trades concept is lacking, because you should try to maintain all aspects of your sports performance or wellness, no matter what endeavor you are involved in. But you should also understand your training phase, and your priorities.
Your training should not be a routine that lasts forever. It should have variety, and blocks with focus on different movements, with different demands. A triathlete is not trying to increase their squat 1-rep maximum (1rm) the week before their event, but increasing a triathletes 1rm's can certainly help their performance, it's the issue of when. Know where you are in the battle against your weaknesses, and the pursuit of your victory. You can train many things, but you may not find the same improvement you could from a dedicated training block focused on improving one or two of your physical abillities. Train hard, and train with variety, but remember, you are training for progress, not just to check off the boxes. Mixed Martial Art athletes train different disciplines, but they do so in training camps, and typically, training camps focus on a specific aspect of their training. Learn from them, and improve like your life and wellbeing depended on it.
2. Stand proud and walk with your shoulders back, like a lobster.- Jordan Peterson
Think of some of the elite athletes of our generation, and visualize them. They most likely will not have a poor, downtrodden posture. Champion athletes walk tall with their shoulder blades retracted, and their neck neutral, looking straight ahead. When it comes to high performance, and winning competition, a good posture also bodes well in the animal kingdom. In Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules For Life, he strongly advises against poor posture. Lobsters engage in battle during mating rituals. Winners tend to keep winning, and losers keep losing, but the losing lobster slowly loses it's posture, and very rarely turns its fighting performance around. Their physiology changes with their battle viability. If this holds true to humans too, then humanity is rampant with risks.
The world is at our fingertips, and eyes are connected to it. Cell phones, keyboards, TV's from a reclined couch. All of these devices drag your head down, your neck down, and your shoulders forward. Most jobs are pretty demanding of you to do this. Even in personal training, the trainer is looking down at the client very often, there's a lot of activity on the floor. For a better posture, appearance, and performance, try to avoid habits that weaken your posture. Bringing your phone up to text is a good idea, and using the pop socket can help you do it without the paranoia of dropping your phone. If your excuse for looking down at your phone is because you are driving, you should stop doing that too. Modifying your workplace and house can help you maintain good posture. Adjustable desks and ergonomic office chairs can promote healthier hips and shoulders.
Also, exercise can help or hurt your posture. If your training regimen has holes, you'll miss out on training the movements and muscles that preserve your posture. Don't forgot to train your entire backside. You'll need deadlifts, and other hinge patterns. You'll need rows, or similar motions, and you'll need to do all of them properly. It's not just about doing them, you'll have to do them with the functional movement that creates the good posture, not compensate for the dysfunction. Do your deadlifts, but don't arch your back to stand up with weight that's way to heavy. While they'd be with good intentions, crappy technique will someday lead to crappy health. Don't hit the start button with that timer. My best advice would be to do mostly closed chain exercise movements, ones where your feet or hands are connected to a surface. (Hands on a pulp bar counts as a surface.) These movements create axial loading, which strengthens your midsection, and therefore, your posture. If you do squats, swings, overhead presses, deadlifts, and pull-ups, you'd be able to train the entire body without leaving a commercial grade squat rack. Dumb bells work too. Do the right movements, and do the movements right.
3.Facts Don’t care about your feelings.- Ben Shapiro
Yes, horrible eating habits and physical conditioning can, and will ruin your health. Don't promote it's worsening, especially if it's a crutch used through training harder.
It is great that there's a movement to encourage positivity and happiness with the self, regardless of size or shape. While the adipositivity movement has been great for people who have felt withdrawn or depressed from being overweight to any extent. Despite that, the consequences of being obese are apparent in modern science literature. It's not about being mean to people who are dangerously overweight, the issue is with ignoring the consequences of obesity, for the sake of emotional comfort. A doctors warning that obesity can lead to thyroid problems, type-2 diabetes, joint pain, and all of the problems that come with those conditions. Constructive criticism is critical, but it's also constructive. It builds your abilities and improves your outcomes. In this case, health outcomes.
On the other side, having a great, athletic appearance, doesn't always indicate a great athletic performance. If the training routine actually detrains physical ability, there needs to be a change in the training routine. Exercise selection, frequency, and intensity are 3 areas to look to. If your performance is lacking in any attribute, you should devote a training block to improvement in that category. Make sure that there is a solid base of functional strength, before moving to movements that add complexity. Without knowing how to perform the overhead squat, don't attempt the snatch. This also goes to the box gyms that program classes with complex lunge patterns that look more like a dance move then heavy strength exercise. It is probably better to keep your progression as simple as "up and down with more resistance," than adding more movements to the sequence. Shaky surfaces, slack-lines, or obscure loads aren't always better than pushing through more resistance. Unless your profession or sport really does require complex flows, most people should hammer out the fundamentals, and master them.
When you see that your appearance, or physique is improving, but you still can't squat properly, or perform the motion of a pushup, change the direction of your routine. Dial back the intensity on frivolous, low-hanging fruit exercises (the machine circuit line at your gym), and work on your mechanics. It's a shame to see how many social media "fitness models" preach about their training programs, yet lack an above average level of fitness. Don't let this be you, let your training make you stronger, and more capable. The rest will follow.
4. The danger in becoming closely knit is becoming miserably entangled. - Shraga Silverstein
Honorable mention: The chain is only as strong as the weakest link.- Proverb.
Having a training partner can be great, in the rare occasion that all the stars align, and your training goals and motivations push each other. Unless you're in the sports team setting, this usual doesn't line up perfectly. Don't make your level of intensity depend on somebody else wanting to work at it with you. Don't bring your friend from the work to do leg extensions when you want to deadlift. If you're burnt out and can't deadlift, you wouldn't want to work out with the previous guy, so don't. You can have friends in the gym, you can go at the same time as colleagues and use them for spots if you need it. The issue with building other people into our workouts, is being able to go at your rhythm. Aim for good training sessions, efficient ones that you go in with a basic plan, get it done, and rest. As long as you know how to be safe and accountable in the gym, this will work out fine. Know how to use the safety racks, and if not, know how to bail on major compound exercises. Know how to spot a good spotter, and get a safety net from them when needed. This message might be reserved for the more proficient athlete in training. Often, people that are more advanced in the wild safari that is the gym will have tagalongs. This partner should be at level that is as advanced, or more advanced, or be defeated by the chain of their partnership being degrading due to a weak link. To not have any weak links in your training session (or links that waste your time), have some accountability, and train alone.
5. Rome wasn’t built in a day-French Proverb
Every training session can't be a Creed or Rocky montage. Those clunky footsteps, weak lifts, and lack of endurance are clips worth what could be months, or years in your reality. It's not all going to be fixed at once, and there are so many hours in a week to do all of it. Add-in the recovery time needed to be able to train again, and train effectively, and you might be disappointed by the short progress made in a long time. Rome had to have an amazing army to protect the fine arts and wine. You'll need to establish your priorities, and dominate them, before you start bouncing around in training. It's better to keep it simple, and practice, or train your short term priority, until you see sufficient progress. You'll either continue to build upon the same goal, or switch up your training to develop another skill or area. Switching from strength training to hypertrophy training, or training for a 5k vs a Marathon. There aren't any famous MMA fighters that also powerlift and race dirt bikes professionally, or bodybuilders that win triathlons, but anyone can improve on a specific demand, by training a specific demand.
Sometimes, detraining occurs when you step away from a certain training period for awhile. Athletes can lose their endurance, and explosive power very quickly during a true off-season. This is okay, it can be retrained, and rest can let an overreaching body return to a recovered body. So modify as needed, and train wisely. Finding success in your sessions is much better than finding failure. Progress needs a challenge that is both difficult, but attainable, in order for someone to get to the next level of fitness. If movements are getting sloppy, and risk of injury is increasing, there is no need for progress. That structure needs to be strong, just like that attribute, so don't let the crowd of exercises in the building until you have strong pillars for a foundation. Rome made them out of stone, yours are most likely your core and gluteals.
If it doesn’t recovery, you too can also expect a collapse. Build you physical abilities through patience and vigilance. Know the skill you want to improve, and practice through your weaknesses. Avoid the distractions that derail your training block, and build beyond your wildest beliefs.