It seems that for many of us, fitness is a way of life, and it seems, that it has always been our way. Throughout the lay-offs, injuries, and excuses about not having the time, we have begun a hundred beginnings and still persist. Fitness is ingrained in the human DNA. We are born both hunter and gatherer. Nature has given us the natural ability to chase a meal for miles and carry it home, or spend the day bending repetitiously to only have to carry the bounty back to our dwellings. The human body was designed for hard physical work but the advent of industrialization reduced much of that activity.
Now a days, we humans seek out ways to be active beyond our jobs. We join gyms and do the prescribed 3 X 10 workout of bench press to get our activity. After some time, that activity becomes rote, boring, and common. We have an inherent desire to try something different but don't know what or, even worse, don't know what will be an acceptable form of exercise to our peers. Try telling your bench press only buddies that you go to yoga class. Tell the ladies in the spinning class that you do 300 front swings with a 16kg kettlebell. The looks and comments that follow will sometimes amaze, keep in mind the fact that kettlebells and yoga are pretty common forms of fitness. Despite the exposure to the mindless comments, some continue to learn new ways to train, to stay strong, and challenge ourselves.
Our peer groups seem to not invite change, especially when it has to do with the betterment of one of the individuals. Hierarchy is now challenged. The once leader of the bench press group is now trumped by the curious individual's discovery of a new way. Defense mode starts in the form of negativity toward the new activity by berating it. "Yoga is for women." "300 swings with that heavy thing? You'll look like a man." These comments are meant to determine others from joining and sometimes they work. For the most part, the curious individual continues his new found passion and becomes the trail blazer, leaving the others to discover unconventional fitness when it becomes more mainstream. Look at Crossfit, once known as circuit training in its primitive form, had no appeal to us in Junior High School. The reason? No scheduled heavy movements and the added running, so the common conception was it was for girls. Speaking of girls, they were encouraged to 'shape and tone' then. This was tunnel vision of the first degree. Looking back, if anyone had kept on doing circuit training from the '70's until now, they'd be smashing WOD's like crazy today.
The sum of this article is a slight delve into the realities of discovering a new fitness trend - especially an unconventional one. The world longs for change yet refuses it in the same breath. We have all the proof about fitness, and yet, on it's most exposed level is still it is a cult, a sub-culture lying deep beneath a potato chip and onion dip crusted society that lays on excuses formed by negativity. This conditioning makes it harder for those who have broken through that crust, embraced a form of fitness, yet refuse to see another. Only the brave who will explore other paths, openly regarding all movement as fitness, will truly achieve a life of effortless motion.
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