Everything in life has prerequisites or certain skills or information that you must know in order to continue on the mastery or perfection. I use the word perfection very loosely.
When we think about the big names in our society today, whether it is in celebrities, entrepreneurs, movement masters or even Doctors, they all have one thing in common, practice. Practicing your craft is one of the most important factors in becoming great at what you do. But apart from practice, they have to learn about what they are doing in the first place. PREREQUISITES. In order to be on the big screen, in front of millions of people, you have to learn how to act, then learn how to create emotions with the acting and so on. With entrepreneurship its the same thing, first you have to know what kind of business you want to get into and learn everything and anything you can about it. You cannot just think, “oh im going to own my own business in nutritional counseling”, without knowing anything about nutrition. No one will even bother looking you up if you know nothing about the subject or business you want to get into.
This holds true with movement and life. While many personal trainer, PTs, chiropractors, and MDs know this, they rarely talk about it. We rarely see PTs look at the basic movement of a person and ask them what it is that they do everyday, they look at what is the problem you have now and how can I “fix” it. MDs look at the symptoms you have but not the lifestyle choices they are making. And this is not to say that there are no practitioners out there doing this, I am just saying we need more of them doing it.
As a personal trainer, I saw this flaw very quickly in the gym that I was working at. Many trainers decided to look to instagram for help in program design or exercise choices. Or they would ask people that look “fit” and ask what they do. This is not wrong to do but there are much better choices. Learning how to move well without weight or any external force besides gravity is a great way to start. But most people want to get into the nitty gritty of power cleans and pull ups and kettlebell snatches. Without proper foundation of movement, these exercises will either be very difficult or very sloppy and leaves the person vulnerable to injury.
The mindset of the general population, people that do not know about movement and anatomy, has to change in order for this culture to be “healthier”. I put that in quotes because it is a word that has been bastardized a lot and there is no real clear meaning of what it is. I believe that we all live in a state of balance and if that balance is suitable for you, then there is no need for medicine or therapies, just optimization for longevity.
So take this with a grain of salt, there are many ways to optimize the body. But the motto I stand by and preach is to control the basics, control that which you can and the fancy, fun stuff will come after.
