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12-01-19 12:38 PM - Post#890903
Nickbroken, depending on your goals it comes down to. Lol, I just reread that and it sounds like a Yodaism.
If you want all-around capability you are actually hindering yourself if you become too goal oriented and focus on one thing. You can become a great power lifter, Olympic lifter, shot-putter, endurance athlete, horse jockey, etc. But that’s your specialty and if you’ve the right genetics, coaching, in the right age bracket, etc. you can dominate (for a very short while) in that endeavor.
Big whoop! (Translated: so big deal, whoop-dee-do-good-for-you ). Sure It’s impressive to the rest of us who aspire to be there on that same podium but do to many factors will never stand on that podium.
But if you want everyday, work-or-play, survive-and-thrive, improvise-and-adaptabilit y you need variety. When the chips are down you don’t need some Twinkie-specialist on your team. You need someone who can think and act quickly to any given situation. And that capability does not come from specializing in one area of competition.
I come from the world of general labor and a multiple of sports and outdoor activities and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen guys who were great at one particular sport, but when it came time to actual work, they couldn’t handle a tough job. They could run a 26 mile marathon but couldn’t handle digging in a ditch all day long. Or some guy specializing in some strength sport but was wheezing at the end of unloading two-three wagon loads of hay back-to-back.
I’ve seen the same thing when it comes to someone who trains and competes in one sport and then a bunch of guys get together to play some pick-up game of some other sport the dude has never played. They usually put in a very poor showing, lol.
What is it, Quadrant 1, a lot of qualities or skills at a low level? And Q2 is a lot of qualities or skills at a high level? This from Dan John and the four Quadrants.
Q1 is (or used to be) kids in school who played a lot of different sports, learned to swim, climb, wrestle, run, sprint, jump, etc. They learned all the rules and skills to a low degree. Q2 is the same except at a very high level: i.e. NFL, Navy SEALS, etc. Which very few people fit into that category but many aspire to.
So, what you are essentially trying to do is take your Q1 skills and slowly ramp them up. Sad to say, many people actually do not even have or never fit in to Q1. This SHOULD be the base for EVERYONE. Even the aging person who never did anything in their life. Help them learn a lot of low level skills and then go from there. Why are you trying to convince them to become a power lifter, KB specialist, endurance athlete (because that’s the Koolaide YOU drink) if they can’t even balance on one leg, crawl or do a decent set of pushups or catch a ball? But that’s just how I look at it.
Moving on, everything is on a sliding scale. Grade school skills, abilities, strengths, etc. are low but many. But by the time that child reaches his senior year, if he hasn’t erroneously started specializing, his capabilities have increased exponentially. Yes, due in part to growing physically but also because of another handful of years or so of continued exposure to developing all of these skills.
It’s the same in Q2, don’t kid yourself. There is an entry level, a bare minimum to qualify to enter the lower levels of the elite in multi-skilled sports, and vocations. You are the rookie. Then a person continues to progress, honing their skills in a MULTITUDE of disciplines. It is actually very much the same when it comes to working certain physical jobs and operating various types of tools, power-tools and machinery. You can learn to become more adept with the tools of multiple trades.
So the takeaway is there IS a scaling of the level of capability throughout Q1 and Q2. If you are playing in this area, understanding this fact can help you gradually see the path through and begin to explore and thrive in this side of the four Quadrants.
If you disagree, that’s cool, no sweat just stay in your Q3 comfortable little spot and dream of Q4, and leave us alone who know what we’re doing in Q1-Q2, lol.
That’s just MY perspective on this as a life-long dweller of multiple skills capability. IT has stood me well in my life and continues to keep me in the game. I’ll hit 58 in a few months, so I do have a little bit of experience here, having started lifting rocks when I was 10 years old. My older brother was about 15 at that time and got interested in strength and brought home books on self-defense, Judo, calisthenics and weight training and I would read them all and try everything I could get my hands on through the years.
I could write a book or three on all of this, lol.
So yeah, Nickbroken, if your goal is to get good, very good or attempt to dominate some sport, pick your poison and then drink it. It’s your choice.
If your goal is to be MacGyver strong and capable, having an ability to improvise, adapt and overcome, variety is the key. Explore it, experiment with it and dive in deep. You will surprise yourself in a few years at what you can do and actually how well you can keep up with others who specialize in things. You can often surprise them even in their own field of expertise. Can you beat them? Yes, if you play YOUR game and not theirs, lol. Your game has no set rules or regulations, theirs does. Make them play on YOUR turf and you will dominate.
I have found that every week as I rotate common training methods/exercises and also constantly change things up and/or experiment with new ideas I ALWAYS cover the basic human movements in my training. I dare say it’s the specialists who are always needing to go to some PT to fix some issue they have in their training. The ver-rye-it-tist (didn’t know how to spell this, lol, so I spelled it phonetically) or perhaps I should say generalist, has no issues because he is always covering everything weekly or monthly in his training.
Anyway, enough of my long-winded post. Some may laugh and poke at it or maybe even get angry, lol. Though my intent is not to anger anyone. Others may sit there reading this, nodding their heads in agreement with what I posted.
Regardless, there are many paths to follow in training. Just because you are including a lot of variety in your training does not mean you are merely “exercising for exercise sake” or “working out”. Those are buzz-words coined by those with something to sell or those too insecure to buck the current fitness trends and want to appear knowledgeable.
Some people want to argue about the three avenues of scientifically explaining work-capacity. I could care less. Go hang with some worker chopping dead trees down in the woods, limbing the logs, bucking them, dragging them out through the mud or snow and loading up his truck to drive home and split the wood by hand and if you can do that all day and continue to work like that for a handful of months, then you’ll really understand work-capacity. Look back at the old time lifters, they were very capable and well-rounded athletes, not one-trick ponies.
Sure, those buzz-words can and do apply to many people who mindlessly exercise, but tell that to some Q4 athlete or high-level Q1 person who knows what they are doing and they will just smile. Because the person trying to argue with you that “you’re just working out. I’m the one who’s really training because I’m working toward the goal to compete in (fill in the blank) and you don’t have any real goal” doesn’t have a clue. Smile, nod our head, don’t argue and just say; “It’s all good Grasshopper.”
JMHO, lol.
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