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09-03-21 10:59 AM - Post#913058
This reminds me a bit of a discussion here a year or two back where there was a lifter in his 70s saying, "hey, just teach yourself the snatch." People did this up to about 1980 or so - now, they don't. DJ had some piece about this, I think it was the Geezer Advantage article, about how if you're a certain age, in school you vaulted pommel horses and climbed ropes and did situps with medicine balls and kicked balls and threw balls and went for a run and - but if you're under that age, you sat at a computer.
If you've been active for your lifetime you sometimes don't realise what an advantage that is in dealing with physical challenges, compared to the person who's been sedentary.
This is so true.
I had an easy time teaching myself to lift from watching videos. It never made sense when people couldn't just watch a demonstration and do. This is not attributed to talent - I'm not particularly athletic (just watch me try to throw) - but I did grow up 'playing' as Dan would call it. Not sports, I hated structured sports, more parkour and free running stuff. Climbing buildings and structures, having parkour challenges in playgrounds, rock climbing, jumping and rolling around, just being a kid. I had a few very active friends so it was all just fun. Even when we did watch tv it was typically old martial arts movies during which we typically would do pushup, pullup, and situp challenges.
In my very limited experience coaching, sports didn't always translate to motor intelligence but something like gymnastics always did. "I played baseball" didn't mean you were gonna be easy to teach. But "I did figure skating" or "I did gymnastics" always did. Even if it was just for a few years as a young kid. Master the body first and the rest is easy.
A local school has taken up 'fitness' as the new thing in gym class. They're teaching them to squat, deadlift, etc. While I do think it's better than nothing I would rather we make a return to the large monkey bar/playground structures complete with rings, rope ladders, and climbing ropes that all school gyms used to have and have since been deemed 'unsafe' and removed by the safety police. Now we've replaced mastering your body in an environment with lifting weights because crossfit. I think we're losing something in that trade off especially for younger kids. Not that you can't lift weights as a kid, but weights should be an accessory to a strong gymnastics/calisthenics based foundation.
Maybe I'm biased because, to bring this thread back around, I'm pivoting myself back to a foundation of body weight mastery and ditching the heavy weights. It's a pivot that I've seen some older men make. Whenever I've met an older active man who didn't have a history of pain replete with surgeries and injuries I usually ask them what they do. Without fail - they ditched the weights in their 30's or 40's and got into body weight fitness. Those guys tend to be very spry and active into their 50's and 60's and beyond. Now, not that it can't be done, I compare that to the men I've met who kept with weights and didn't know when to hang it up or pivot - they usually had several surgeries and injuries and couldn't perform basic life tasks without pain. They were plagued with life altering restrictions, can't lift arms over their head, back pain, etc.
Obviously there's ways to keep lifting weights and stay healthy. Dan and company has presented many good options. I plan to keep my weights and use them occasionally - but with hard limits on them.
Edited by Jordan Derksen on 09-03-21 10:59 AM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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