So being fit can be pretty hard work right? We spend lots of time being uncomfortable and out of breath, we ache a lot of the time and let’s face it, we experience a fair amount of painful moments. But it’s all worth it because we get to be a fitter and healthier version of ourselves.
We also get to do things that other people can’t. Obtaining a decent level of fitness means we get to nail skills, movements and exercises that people who don’t work on their physical abilities can only dream of. Think olympic lifting, muscle ups, butterfly pull ups and handstand walking.
All of the above, whilst exercises in themselves, could also be considered demonstrations of fitness. They are things we can do because we have spent time doing the less sexy stuff.
For example a muscle up is a demonstration of your pulling and pushing strength, no doubt achieved through lots of strict pull ups and dips, push ups, accessory work and patience. No one got their first muscle up by continually trying to do muscle ups. They did the ground work.
A mind blowing clean is also a demonstration of other hard work. It’s someones efforts towards their deadlift, their squat and their accessory work being put into practice. Whilst there is obviously merit and purpose to practising cleans, drilling the technique and building strength through repetitions I would put good money on most of us improving our clean more through having a stronger deadlift, front squat and core.
So what’s my point? As always this is me preaching about the basics. This is me encouraging anyone looking to achieve an elite level of fitness to work on the simple things, to build an indestructible foundation through gymnastics, compound barbell work and simple metabolic conditioning pieces. If you put the time in with these, and it will be more time than you might think, the sexier, more instagram-able stuff will follow with time.