You Suck at Being Human
How’s that for a catchy title?
The purpose of this article is to make you feel bad. To make you question why it is you’re doing what you’re doing in the gym (or on the track). To be clear, I made myself feel bad in advance as I started ruminating on what this article might turn into, so if nothing else, at least we’re in this dark place together. And by accepting that we’re at rock bottom, perhaps as a team we can work together to pull ourselves out. Pull ourselves towards some higher purpose with regard to what effective training should look like when the goal is to not suck at being human.
My Core Argument
I’ll lay it out right up front: despite gym attendance surging 45% from the 2010s to the present, I would argue that human beings are at their least functional in terms of being able to navigate a less-than-ideal environment. Take away the air conditioning, the electricity, the fancy equipment, the calibrated weights, the supplements, the wearable devices, and all those HyroxCrossFitterPowerlifterEndurance Athletes start to appear less-than-useful.
Strange, right? We attach quite a bit of meaning to, say, a 500lb deadlift or a sub-5 minute mile. We may even aspire to the completion of a 50k. But if that self-aggrandized benchmark comes at the expense of literally every other marker of fitness, what’s the point?
General Physical Preparedness…I Guess?
In strength and conditioning, we like to throw around the term “general physical preparedness,” or GPP. At best, it’s a misunderstood Soviet term used to describe young athletes who spend a lot of time doing a lot of things before specializing in an Olympic sport. At worst, it’s a catchall buzzword used to justify doing literally anything and everything.
Truthfully, I think most of us operate within a paradigm that looks a lot like this:
Youth: play a lot of sports, do a lot of things…also gymnastics…and maybe swim. But don’t play tackle football. Or maybe do? Whatever…we’ll call all of this GPP.
Young Adult: play one sport, and get really good at it. Practice 8 days a week. Win at all costs and hopefully get a scholarship. Tell everyone you’re fine but really you’re a mess mentally and emotionally.
Adult: look back to your Young Adult days and train that way because that’s what you know. Avoid anything else because the last thing you want to do is look dumb or weak. Move the same muscles in the same way for a long time. Get injured. Blame something else. Or engage in some sort of competitive fitness pursuit because it feels, well, competitive.
What ends up happening in the trajectory of your fitness life is that, when left to your own devices, you gravitate towards what you are good at and avoid what makes you feel bad. If you’ve always been a runner, you’ll likely run more. If you’ve always been strong, you’ll likely spend most of your time in the gym. The programming itself may evolve slightly from one chunk of time to the next, but for the most part, you’re operating within a self-created box that is often difficult, but seldom challenging.
So What Does it Mean to “Be Human”?
I want to be very careful here and avoid going down the “train to fight zombies/survive the apocalypse/kill bad guys” rabbit hole. That stuff is fun for thought experiments, but it also creates a conversation that feels so far removed from reality that we oftentimes ignore the underlying, yet still useful, messaging.
Instead, let’s talk about things that, as a healthy apex predator and human primate you should be able to do. I’m going to frame this not as a series of points that I need to prove; rather, as a series of questions that I need you to justify to me. The burden of proof, my friends, is on you.
With That in Mind, I Need You to Explain to Me Why You Shouldn’t Be Able To…
Run a 5k
3.1 miles. That’s it. You don’t need to race it. I don’t even need you to run fast. But if your approach to training means that you are incapable (either mentally or physically) of moving your body intentionally across 5 kilometers of flat ground, you are weaker than you should be. And you are a liability to others in a group setting.
Climb a Rope
Forget harkening back to the romanticism of yesteryear and the imagery of our American GI’s climbing ropes. I’m talking about moving yourself from one horizontal plane to another via a static, hanging object. Chances are, if you find yourself below the altitude at which you wish to be, moving up a rope is going to be the preferred way of getting there. Climbing a rope represents not only command of your body in space, it also shows that you have spent time learning an important evolutionary skill. What’s the point of deadlifting a house or running 100 miles if you can’t climb 12-15 feet up a rope? If this is you, you too are a liability to others in a group setting.
Swim a Mile
Realistically I included a set distance here as rage bait. It doesn’t have to be a mile. Hell, it could be 500m. Or half a mile. Doesn’t matter. The point is that you should be able to not only survive in water, but move well through it. Around 71% of the Earth’s surface is water, which means chances are high you will find yourself in it at some point or another. If you are big and strong, but sink, then you are dead. If you are light and fast, but also sink, you are also dead. Most people avoid swimming because they’re afraid of looking dumb. Or they haven’t figured out how to breath (just exhale when your head is under water). If you want a clear example of what I mean here, watch the 2011 CrossFit Games swim event. Greek God-like human specimens, most of whom are incapable of navigating 210m of open water. If I can hit my 5 iron further than you can swim, you are a liability to others in a group setting.
Pick Up Your Bodyweight
I don’t mean deadlifting, although executing this requirement on a calibrated barbell is certainly nice. I mean taking a lump of mass roughly equivalent to your own lump of mass and lifting it off the ground. This one is aimed squarely at the endurance crowd who are averse to lifting weights. If you cannot pick up and move your own bodyweight from one location to another, why would you expect anyone to do the same for you? We don’t need double or even triple bodyweight deadlifts to be effective, but if you are incapable of moving any kind of mass at all, you are undoubtedly a liability to others in a group setting.
Run All-Out for 100yd
There was a social media craze a while back where spouses realized how few of them had actually seen their partners run at full speed. Watch that video. It’s funny. It’s also sad. Speed is one of those physical attributes that starts to drift away as soon as we stop training it; yet, if shit were to go down, the first thing you’d need to do is get away from it quickly. If you cannot move, with speed, over the length of a football field without tearing a muscle or quitting halfway through, you are a liability to others in a group setting.
Touch Your Toes and Your Shoulder Blades
This is a catchall for all of you out there who refuse to do mobility work. I’m so tired of working with people who tell me they “can’t put their arms over their head” or “can’t touch their toes” while chuckling to themselves. What you may not understand is that this is a problem. Your inability to move your limbs through their evolutionary range of motion represents a limitation that will likely manifest itself in an injury. And, if you’ve read this far, you’ll certainly know that if you are injured then you are a liability in a group setting.
Don’t Be A Liability
I’ve pulled six physical benchmarks out of a list of things that could easily stretch into double digits. I’m sure that while reading this, you’ve already thought of a few things I’ve left out, and that’s fine. The overarching point here is this:
You Can Be Fit and Also Useless
Don’t be that. Don’t be useless. It’s not fun. What’s fun is being able to help a friend move their couch. What’s fun is being able to climb a tree or swim in a lake. What’s fun is signing up for a random 5k on the weekend because why not? Plodding along through yet another “5×5” weightlifting plan or “50k PR” run program because it satisfies your need for a positive training feedback loop feels good, but it doesn’t actually get you anywhere.
Approach training as you would a playground. Try new things. Mix it up. Rotate in new movements, new distances, new terrain. Be a beginner again and again and before you know it, you’ll be seen by others as a true master of your environment.
That’s way better than being a liability in group setting, no?