Healthy Fitness Outcomes are Built on Structural Health
I use “structural health” for the body— instead of the medical term “musculoskeletal health”—because I found it to be more intuitive as a health goal to think of the body like a building or car which requires structural preservation of its functional parts to get the most quality use for the longest amount of time.
Cars and buildings are complex systems, with many interworking parts, tasked to absorb forces under load. One weak link—a part that is not functioning as designed like a load-bearing wall or shock absorber—can have a cascading negative impact, particularly if it’s not diagnosed and corrected. There are well-established processes to test cars and buildings along with scheduled testing recommendations. In fitness, there is no such standard, culturally-adopted head-to-toe testing method. Still, a reality grounded in physics abides…
It’s not if your body absorbs forces during exercises
It’s how it absorbs them and how many
More weight, time and distance traveled translates to more forces absorbed by the body. We live in a world where people weigh more, sit more, slouch more (because of devices), lift heavier weights and do repetitive cardio (with greater endurance goals). Add in the fact that people are not “assessed” for proper form, even for walking, and what we get is…
People sent in motion,
motivated by marketing and culture,
often unaware of their weak links and form,
(and how much it matters to long-term health & quality of life)
making fitness a pain and injury incubator
(for far too many people)
As the first step in fitness to reduce risk, improve performance and give yourself the best chance at long-term of health, adopt a “structure first” mentality – focusing on your structural health and form, while accounting for the realities of your body.
