Natural Movement For Professionals

How much variety is there in your daily movement?

Professional movers are so accustomed to their specific and specialised exercise regimes that it is difficult to transition into other types of movement skills and physical challenges. They often find themselves quite quickly outside of their comfort zone, in unfamiliar territory, and their performance ineveitably suffers.

Within a movement skill, such as weightlifting, you are confident and able to lift uniform, equal gym weights but struggle if the load is uneven or the ground isn't level. If your performance depends on a standardised framework that is the same every time you train, you may be inadvertantly specialising.

It is necessary as a professional to train specific movement patterns to reach the top of your game but it's worth bearing in mind that specilisation comes at a cost; if we look at it from the perspective of ancestral health it becomes clear that as humans, a little bit of everything makes for the healthiest individual. A bit of climbing, running, walking and jumping all had meaning as it related to daily life. It is only in very recent history that the notion of a professional sportsperson has existed at all.

Greater specialisation is necessary to succeed professionally and we pay the price by becoming adapted to narrow and frequent use patterns.

Training as a professional requires a lot of mental fortitude and there are numerous risks of burn out through stress, repetition injuries and chronic issues. There is a lack of emphasis placed on overall general function and an attitude of whatever the cost mentally or physically, it's worth it to get to the top. Not to mention the widespread use of P.E.D's (performance enhancing drugs) which I'll touch on at a later date.

“Broadly specific” means that you’re specifically adapted—note that this is about specificity, not specialization—to a broad variety of motor-skills and physiological adaptations that stem from exposure to a broad variety of specific practical demands, and that makes you unspecialized and highly adaptable
- Erwan Le Corre

Cross-training with natural fitness is a way to increase the amount of training you do without increasing the likelihood of injury and can serve as active recovery, giving you the chance to take a mental break from your professional work, leaving you refreshed and recharged.

As a performer it will widen your movement vocabulary and as an athlete it will give you a competitive advantage by improving your movement skill patterns.

I like to include a good mix of physical, technical and mental challenges into sessions with the aim of becoming well-rounded in mobility, power, speed, coordination, agility and accuracy.

For those ready to do the work, I look forward to connecting over a session.

- B

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