How to be Fit and Unfit (at the same time)

Hi Gang. Monday’s post seemed to strike a chord with some of you so I thought I might leave my Exercise Bloke hat on for one more day and explore another important ingredient in the getting-in-shape process: Exercise Variety.

Exercise Variety

A few years ago (okay, nearly twenty) I trained a girl who was (at that time) a world champion distance swimmer. She came to see me because she was looking to add some variety to her sport-specific training and to build a different kind of fitness. It’s fair to say that before we started working together, there was very little variety and virtually zero cross-training in her program. As her sport was water-based and non-weight bearing (obviously), I thought we might do a little running (among other things) to stimulate her body in a different way and to add a new dimension to her fitness base.

She What?

We began our first ever training session with a one kilometre (0.6 mile) warm-up run (before a planned weight training session). Being as she was a highly-trained elite athlete, I set a reasonable pace. Not fast, but something above a jog. After all, she was a current world champion. She almost didn’t make it. That’s right, the world-class swimmer – who would regularly swim ten kilometres (6 miles) before most of us are out of bed - struggled to run around the block. Literally. I was shocked. How could such a fit girl be so, er, unfit? Well, it wasn’t that she was unfit, it was that she was unfit for running. Her body was conditioned for ocean swimming – not running around the block with me.

Had we been training in the ocean (and not running outdoors), it would have been a very different story.

Different Types of Fitness

Human bodies have an amazing ability to be “fit” for certain things, while simultaneously being “unfit” for others. That is to say, fitness is not universal. Someone who is fit for running marathons will – more than likely – not be fit for rock climbing. That person may not even be fit for sprinting 100 metres because, even though she runs a lot, she never trains at maximum (sprinting) velocity. So too, a sprinter, with his or her large muscular body (and abundance of fast-twitch muscle fibres), would never last a 42 kilometre (26 mile) marathon. Someone who can bench press a Hyundai (fit for lifting weights) might not be able to touch his toes (unfit in terms of flexibility). Someone who can run and kick all day (a soccer player) may not last three minutes on the wrestling mat or in the boxing ring.

A fit person ain’t always a fit person. It depends on the activity, the physical requirements and the environment.

Pseudo Fitness

Have you ever thought you were “pretty fit” and then for some reason, you did a different kind of workout or exercise session – only to discover that you weren’t nearly as fit as you thought you were? Me too. A few years ago I played a casual game of (Australian Rules) football. Two hours of full-contact sport with some buddies and a few strangers. At the time, I was running four days per week, lifting weights three times and doing some varied cardio (bike, boxing, stairs, grappling) once or twice a week as well. With all that regular training, I considered myself to be above average fitness and strength. I also considered a casual game of football to be a walk in the park for this fit, strong (and clearly deluded) alpha-male. The day of the game arrived and for two hours I was a superstar.

In my mind.

For a week after the game, I could hardly move. I’m pretty sure I ruptured my entire body. The only thing that didn’t hurt (post-game) was my hair. And two fingernails. I’m also pretty sure I was the first person in the world to have a full-body spasm. It lasted a day. Getting out of a chair took ten minutes. And two helpers. Pathetic.

What fitness?

Where Do You Want the Piano?

Another time when I was young, strong and even dumber, I was recruited to help a friend move house. I was targeted by my buddy because he (erroneously) assumed that my large biceps and daily visits to the gym (I was in a bodybuilding phase) would make me the perfect (free) removalist. I turned up at the designated address at the designated time to discover that the entire moving crew consisted of my buddy, his dad (a weedy old chain-smoking dude) and yours truly. I felt totally ripped off. What on earth had I signed up for?

The truck arrived and I started lifting, carrying, moving and packing like a world-class removalist. For twenty minutes.

All Show and No Go

At the twenty-one minute mark, I began to realise that overall power and strength (of which I had plenty) weren’t nearly as valuable (in the house-moving world) as muscular endurance, grip strength and aerobic fitness (of which I had almost none). I also realised that I had never had a real job. By the two-hour mark, the weedy old chain-smoker was kicking my arse all over the place. By lunch time my fingers were hurting, my back was aching like a f***er, I’d lost half my bodyweight in sweat, and the old dude was ploughing on like some kind of furniture-moving cyborg. I later discovered that the skinny old dude worked every day as a landscape gardener. As a removalist, he was much fitter than me.

Universal Fitness?

‘Fitness’ is all about our ability to complete a physical task and the effect that task has on our body. There is no universal fitness standard because whether or not somebody is ‘fit’ will be dependant upon what they are required to do physically. Somebody who scores very high on a ‘beep test’ (a common test used to gauge aerobic fitness) might score poorly on an agility test. They may do even worse with upper-body strength testing. Somebody who scores high on a sit-and-reach test (for flexibility) might score low on a vertical leap test (a test for explosive lower-body power). And what about the bloke who can do eighty push-ups in a row (muscular endurance) but can’t toes his toes because his hamstrings are like violin strings? Muscular endurance of a pro boxer, flexibility of a ceramic tile.

If it’s your goal to have a broad fitness base – that is, to improve your overall strength, power, speed, muscular endurance, agility, aerobic endurance, flexibility, balance and co-ordination – then it’s my suggestion that you vary your training activities often.

And now you know why.

As always, love to hear your thoughts.