Well, we are inching closer to the launch date. Typesetting is done and the manuscript is now in the firm (but soft) hands of a proofreader.
Here’s another excerpt from Spandex Not Compulsory.
Improve Your Fitness by Improving Your Movement
The goal of this chapter is not to scare you into stopping your fitness efforts. Quite the opposite: the goal is to get you thinking about if you could do better. If you are a novice to training or contemplating starting, let me tell you this: too often, a timid person finally musters the courage to start a fitness program, does something that is beyond their capability, gets injured, and never sets their foot in the gym again. It’s a tragedy. Whether you are a seasoned trainee or a novice, working on your movement quality will help to take the brakes off so you can accomplish your goals not only more safely, but also faster.
As we’ve discussed, the only way most trainees know how to measure the “success” of a training session is whether they are gassed (exhausted) at the end of it. The closer we are to coughing up blood after a high-intensity workout, the more success we’ve achieved. It’s one of the reasons why we, the training population, have more musculoskeletal injuries than the non-training population. We take on fitness to become healthier, yet achieve the opposite. And we keep coming back and doing it over again. That is ignorance and idiocy at its finest.
Prioritise movement quality
Most trainees are too focused on the fitness side of things and completely ignore their movement quality. And I get it. If you are conditioned to use your level of tiredness and soreness (both of which are fallacies) as a measuring stick for success, it can be frustrating to take a step back from intense training. It will feel like you are not going anywhere. But to have long-term success in training, movement quality has to come first.
To illustrate this point, we have talk about aeroplanes. You can’t improve the engine turbines of a Boeing 747 without improving the frame, the wheels, and everything in-between. The best-case scenario when only improving the turbines is that the 747’s original frame will limit the capabilities of the more powerful engine. The plane won’t fly any faster despite all the money and man-hours involved. The weak links will hold back the plane’s performance. This is equivalent to you wasting countless hours in the gym, wondering why you aren’t getting results: you’re trying to load fitness onto a body that can’t make the most out of it. Your frame is limiting what the engine can do.
The worst-case scenario of only improving the turbines is that the powerful 747 engines will rip the original frame into pieces during take-off. In the gym, this means injuries, missed training sessions, declining results and everything that follows forced rest. And sadly, that is what I see all the time. As a matter of fact, someone, somewhere in the world at this very moment is committing this. It is especially true of men who are trying to impress ze ladiez (or other men) with magnificent feats of strength. I also see women with poor-quality movement jump into high-intensity programs and classes that are beyond their current capabilities. It’s a shit-storm in the making. Your movement quality is the springboard for everything you want to get better at in or outside of the gym. There’s wisdom (and safety, and pending future awesomeness) in mastering the basics first. Yet, it is unpopular because it requires long-term thinking and an abundance of patience.
Know and improve your movement baseline
I am in favour of a yearly “movement screen” for everybody, an idea I believe I first heard on Ask Mike Reinold Podcast. It would be just like a check-up at your dentist or doctor. The dentist tells you what work your teeth need and whether you have to be more diligent with your mouth hygiene – possibly reaching behind that far left back tooth more often. The doctor will tell you about your blood work and whether there are preventative measures you should take. Your movement specialist would tell you what you need to work on. If you spend your days slaving away in a cubicle, it would likely be things such as upper back and hip mobility. Not only would this be a preventative measure to avoid pains and aches that come with poor movement quality, but it would also get you better results. Working on movement quality is like putting money in the savings account for the future – to help you keep more independence as you get older. Use it or lose it, as the old folks say.
If you are new to training, make sure to get your movement screened first. A good place to start is the Functional Movement Systems website to find a person certified in the Functional Movement Screen. If you’ve been training for a while, keep checking your movement baseline. Don’t let your fitness efforts negatively affect your movement quality, but learn to improve and maintain both.