See, this is what happens when you give me free reign enough to tell you what really pisses me off about my industry. And now you & whoever else is unlucky enough to bump into this blog today are going to have to sit through this little diatribe because of it.

When blessed with the machines, the beautifully efficient kinetic systems that God and evolution bestowed on us, what have we done as professionals? The human body is a singularly elegant machine. It has evolved over the entire course of human existance on this planet to be a streamlined and smoothly integrated series of energy supply, motors, levers and receptors tk meet the challenges of our every day. While we may not be done growing yet, right now we are at the momentary pinnacle of our evutionary journey. When given a task, we instinctually find the most efficient way to accomplish that task. If we can’t accomplish it, the body grows, learns and adapts to be able to accomplish it next time. The whole working together to accomplish the singular.

So what have we done? We’ve clogged the very spaces meant to develop our physical selves into their utmost with machines of inefficiency, machines that break our beautifully efficient and inteligent system into parts that are forced to function unnaturally independant of each other. We take nature’s greatest, smartest creation and shackle it. We make sure that the body is as comfortable and relaxed as possible to move one joint or one combination of joints in isolation of all else in order to get stronger. We deconstruct a system meant to function in harmony with its self, train the parts to move in isolation and then expect the total machine to work better when we put the whole thing back together again. What the hell?

This is why MOVE. This is why kettlebells, interval training, olympic lifting and all those damn burpees. Sitting in cars, offices Cybex, and Nautilus machines has created such a disonnect that we’ve forgotten what the last umpteen million years have taught us. We have to learn to function in our own bodies, in the real world again. Stand up, pick something with some heft to it and get moving!

Here’s a thought: How long have you been doing the same arm curls and leg press machines? How long have you been trying to lose that last 5lbs or get rid of tht back pain?

How’s that working out for you?