What if I told you fitness could save your life?
What if I told you health could kill you?
Would you believe me?
You don’t have to if you don’t want to.
But if I were you I’d believe Teddy. (That’s him over there, to the right.)
Because fitness—not health—might be the only reason he’s alive.
What you need to know about fitness and health
I write about fitness. At least, I think I write about fitness. But I’m going to be honest: I’m not sure I know what fitness is anymore.
I know that mainstream fitness is a joke. I mean, it has to be. Right? How else does the majority of the population end up with metabolic diseases?
But there’s something interesting here: I don’t train to prevent metabolic disease. Same goes for most athletes I know. So how does this work? How do I train for and write about fitness but not give care to metabolic disease?
That’s an easy one.
Because fitness isn’t health.
Fitness—or whatever most people perceive it to be—is dead. It’s puzzle of health, athletics, and some kind of pseudo personal-self development soup. With CrossFit branding its athletes as the “fittest on earth,” it just adds to the fuckery. No one knows what health or fitness is anymore.
Do you?
Why fitness isn’t health
Fitness is the ability to do a task. End of story. There are many tasks out there, which means there are many types of fitness. There’s no “One Fitness” that was born from the fires of Mount Doom to rule them all.
There’s a unique fitness for tricking. There’s a unique fitness for powerlifting. There’s a unique fitness for Olympic weightlifting. There’s even a unique fitness for *gasp* CrossFit!
Athletes that chase fitness usually end up sacrificing health at times. There’s a difference between the absence of disease and increasing sports performance.
Loading the spine with 315 pounds says nothing about the interplay of organs or the absence of disease, both of which are common definitions of “health.” And considering the demands of modernized civilization rarely extend beyond carrying five pounds worth of groceries from the car to the kitchen, I question the “need” of barbell training.
The idea of hormesis is better for “health.” Hormesis is developing yourself just enough to protect from death. Just enough. You exercise just enough to make sure you won’t die from an exercise related disease. You strength train just enough to make sure you won’t crack your hip after slipping on soap in the tub.
The kicker is that most mainstream “fitness” goers don’t want “health.” They think they do, but that’s only because they don’t know the difference between health and fitness.
They want low body fat. They want muscle tone. They want cosmetic enhancement. This motivation has been around for a long time too. It’s why people used stomach fat jiggling belts.
Yet none of the above—low body fat, muscle tone—are markers of being disease free.
So with this in mind, mainstream fitness goers should train more like professional athletes to get the results they want. Their conception of “health” is actually the idea of being bigger, faster, and stronger. This is shaped by athletics, not the absence of disease. Yet mainstream fitness methods are rooted in “health,” not athletics.
There’s a reason most of us in fitness tell everyone to train like an athlete.
Do you train like an athlete?
Forego health for athletic fitness
Let’s face it: We aren’t cavemen. We are people living in an industrialized world. The pursuit of fitness—for athletes, enthusiasts, and just about everyone—is rarely about health.
This is why I tell skinny-fat ectomorphs to embrace vanity. This is why athletes train through pain. This is why we load the spine even though we only need to carry groceries.
And while neither of these things epitomize health, they might just save your life.
Things change inside when you face your maker under a barbell. I’m reminded by a passage out of Mark Rippetoe’s Strong Enough:
Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general.
What does this mean though?
What exactly is being harder to kill?
Maybe we should ask Teddy.
I think Teddy will know.
Teddy and I interned together in college. We trained in the same weight room at times, but it was never solely about health. Teddy’s powerlifting career is evidence for that.
But the mentality Teddy took towards training did something for him that training for “health” could never have done: it saved his life.
I’ll let him tell you the story.
HOW HEALTH CAN KILL YOU
Teddy: For me, training started when I was young. Some of my most vivid memories as a kid are from sports.
As a high school football player, I trained year round. I feel in love with everything: sprinting, stair running, and any other physical challenge I could swallow.
Unfortunately, a shoulder injury and one too many college parties derailed my playing days. But I still loved training and I wanted my life to revolve around it, so I started powerlifting. My best total came in March 2011 at USAPL Raw Maryland with a 455 squat / 335 Bench / 545 Deadlift at 214 lbs.
But I didn’t really train like a powerlifter. I trained like an athlete. I used sub-maximal weights, typically only going above 80% once every two months or so. I did a lot of sprinting, jumping, sled work, and strongman exercises. (Fasted cardio, cooking wholesome foods, and staying active kept my physique in check.)
On an idle Monday, I was biking to physical therapy school. It was early. I was half asleep. TOOL was soothing my psyche through my ear buds as I traversed a new, unfamiliar route.
I crossed an intersection blindly, but only because there weren’t any signs to tell me otherwise. A car going 20-30 mph T boned me. I saw it at a glance, but it was too late.
After the impact, I jumped up and stumbled to the sidewalk. Although disoriented, I was surprised I could even walk. But I stayed there, awaiting an ambulance.
I wasn’t wearing a helmet. I was lucky to be alive, all things considered. My orthopedist told me I was one of his luckiest patients. My list of injuries wasn’t exactly short though:
- Meniscus fraying
- Sprained ACL
- Sprained MCL
- Severely sprained foot
- Torn ligaments in my right hand
- Broken nose
- Facial lacerations
- Bruised ribs
- Strained rotator cuff
- Bone bruising
The ortho’s special tests hinted to a torn ACL and MCL in addition to broken bones. But if you gander at the list above you’ll notice no tears in the knee or no broken bones in the leg.
I have no doubt that making it out alive (and without many broken bones) is credit to strength training. It made me a warrior. Two days before the accident, I squatted 405×5 on my quest to my 500lb January goal.
Imagine I hadn’t lifted weights aggressively. Imagine I trained for “health,” and walked a bit here and there for my exercise. Imagine I had no consideration for muscle mass.
I wouldn’t even be alive, let alone getting compliments from the EMT for damaging the vehicle with my helpless carcass.
You often hear of people questioning pseudo-obsessive training behaviors.
“Do you need to go to the gym that much?”
“Why do you care about muscles?”
“Why do you count calories? Are you an obsessive freak?”
“Why do you care about what you eat so much?”
Those things dig at you sometimes. It’s currently “cool” to be lackadaisical and approach training less seriously. But the thousands of hours I spent sweating in the gym training my strength, power, and mobility and the countless meals I prepared in advanced to flush my body with the correct nutrients was all worth it. Because without all of that—what many people would actually call “unhealthy” behaviors—I probably wouldn’t be here.
Funny how that works out.
Isn’t it?
+++++
Those that trick with no formal gymnastics and martial arts training and with nothing more than a bed of grass at their disposal are called backyard tricksters. For the majority of my tricking career, I was a backyard trickster. This gave me an athletic mentality. I had an athletic outlet.
I’m partially inclined to start a new movement: be a backyard athlete. You don’t need to play a professional sport. You don’t need immense training. Just be an athlete. Let it seep into your soul. Let it affect how you carry yourself.
This relationship between health, fitness, and athletics is funky. I blasted this question to my social media platforms: “Is fitness the same thing as health?” No one mentioned “being harder to kill” as a characteristic of either fitness or health.
What do you think?
Are you an athlete?
Does your training make you harder to kill?
Wow man! Good read. Being honest- I don’t why- but I got emotional reading this. My life was never put on the line like that but I did come back from the depths of hell through strength training and always said I train like an athlete to be harder to kill and to stay away from EVER going back to hell.
Thanks for the reply, Mike. Glad you enjoyed it.
Lots of food for thought here, Anthony. I’m concerning myself with raw strength in my training at the moment, so yes, you could say I’m “making myself harder to kill.”
Also, I think that’s something everyone should strive for. I know a guy who was faced with a situation similar to Teddy. Monstrous, buff guy, going on a jog, made two huge mistakes:
1) He had an iPod with him, and the volume was so high that he couldn’t hear any outside noise
2) He crossed the street without looking
Result: Dude got hit by a car. Fortunately it was on a residential road, so the speed wasn’t too high, but suffice to say getting hit by a car ALWAYS sucks.
Injury? Minor scratches and bruises. That’s it. The car looked worse for wear than he did. If he hadn’t been “as difficult to kill,” I’m certain he would be in much worse shape than he was.
Lesson: If you’re running outside, be in tune with your surroundings, and follow your mother’s advice of looking both ways before crossing. But in case of mental failings/epic stupidity, make yourself harder to kill to minimize consequences.
Cool stuff, Daniel. Thanks for sharing.
This post really speaks to the reasons I got off my but and decided to start training… I don’t train to be healthy, fit, ripped, stacked, etc… I train to be capable.
These got me started and I’m going to add this article to my list:
http://artofmanliness.com/2009/09/15/every-man-should-be-able-to-save-his-own-life-5-fitness-benchmarks-a-man-must-master/
http://www.itstactical.com/fitcom/functional-strength-fitcom/can-you-physically-save-yourself/
Awesome work Anthony!
Thanks for the reply Thorne! Awesome, glad I can help!
Training as an elite athlete definitely makes you harder to kill. And this also means less susceptible to injuries, and able to recover faster from injuries.
I am a D3 long and triple jumper, but I swear to you that the only difference between me and any D1 or professional jumper is pure genetic ability. I train as hard as I can, my training is balanced and based very heavily on speed and power activities, with a huge weight room emphasis. At a BW of 140, I possess 1RMs of 235 for Power Clean, 315 for squat, and 210 for Bench.
Last year I severely sprained my ankle 6 days before our first meet of the year, on a Sunday. That coming Saturday, I tied my personal best in triple jump, when our athletic trainer told me that I wouldn’t be able to compete for a month.
That’s what training for fitness does for you
Joey, I feel you on the difference between DI and DIII, having trained DI athletes, it’s unfair.
I look at health as aiming for for quality of life and building that quality of life over long-term, short-term, and the time in between. This means having enough muscle to protect your bones, having bones dense enough that they don’t easily break, and tendons/ligaments that maintain their function. Health as an aversion to death is short-sighted at best, much like those who aren’t currently sick aren’t necessarily healthy. Quality of life, for today and for later in life, means that I don’t have to take insulin, but it also means that I don’t snap a tendon in my hand when I’m 60 from opening a car door. It means that I know how to take a fall without breaking my arm when I trip, and enough cushion if I do botch the landing. Health as an avoidance of disease is common, though, and I loathe every visit to the doctor because every question gets answered with “you’ll be fine.” Who the hell wants to just be “Fine?”
My brother and I use debt as a metaphor here: spending more money than you earn puts you in financial debt, and not taking care of your body puts you in a physical debt. Just as we have checking accounts and savings accounts, we have health and fitness (checking accounts) and strength (savings accounts).
I like how you said “knowing how to fall.” Everyone needs to tumble.
Anthony –
Great post you had a lot of great points and were very accurate on how people obsess with wanting to have a low body fat % and to be toned. I know I do but that is probably because I love to eat and didn’t have the discipline to get into the shape that I desired. I have always been a little over weight but when I got married and my wife loved to cook. Boy was I in trouble. I guess she thought that the way to my heart was through my stomach. Well 1 year later I had gained 70lbs and not feeling very self confident for my self. Since I learned about a intermittent fasting I have lost over 30lbs while putting on muscle mass so I have made some improvements but not to the point that I want. So to say that it is bad for me to obsess about it is bad I guess is true because I shouldn’t lose sleep over it but if I have always wanted the swoon walk the were a woman has to take a second look I guess I am very determined. I mean go to the extreme like 20 -24 hours of fasting on non weights days, 16 hours for weights days and incorporate carb cycling into that as well. Have had some great progress as much as 2 lbs lost in a 24 hour window but that doesn’t happen every day with muscle growth at the same time. Oh almost forgot this hurt my sex life with my wife because I had gained so much weight in a short period of time. And yes beauty is suppose to be inside as well as out but she didn’t feel so. It hurts when you wife doesn’t want to touch you.
Don’t know what else to say start of started rambling there. I guess what I am trying to say is there is more than one perspective and all should be looked at.
Appreciate the reply, Harry. Very insightful. Keep on trucking.
I will thanks for the encouragement. I continue to lose weight daily and been able to push more weight each time I go to the gym. IF is the shit been doing carb cycling in conjunction with it but not to much carbs.
It also has got me to the weight that I need to be able to start a business my wife and I have wanted to start so wish me luck on that.
G’luck.
Awesome article, and love the Rippetoe quote. This makes a great parallel to Dan John’s discussion of mucsle as body armor for athletes. Thousands of years ago ‘fitness’ (AKA being hard as fuck) saved us from mammoths and saber toothed tigers. Now it saves us from cars and loud headphones. Regardless of how you want to define fitness, there is no down side to being stronger and fitter.
PREACH, BROTHA’! PREACH!
I look forward to an article in the future about Teddy’s recovery, highlighted with a video of him hitting a 500lb squat
. Get well soon, sir, your goals are waiting for you.
Ha! I’ll be sure to mention that to him, Benjamin. Thanks.
Wow, a powerful story on why being healthy is more meaningful than looking fit, Anthony. I’m glad Teddy made it out alive. And, definitely agree that we should all have a backyard athlete mentality on a day-by-day basis. The Dylan Thomas quote seems to fit nicely here: “Do not go gentle into that good night….”
Mitch
Nice quote Mitch
Appreciate it. Tweeting it now.
Cool deal, Anthony.
I note with some relish that we have pretty much the same idea of what ‘fitness’ and ‘health’ mean. Maybe the guys who just eat “paleo” (whatever they imagine that looks like) and exercise for 20 minutes every fifth day look good, and feel good, but I doubt they’ll be stopping traffic the way your boy did.
Of course, there’s a lesson to be learned about wearing earbuds while you’re out and about, too, but that’s a self-defense enthusiast talking.
And yeah, I’d say I’m an athlete, given that I train multiple hours a day, 6-7 days a week, and regulate my diet with a care and fervor that makes Lent a year-round festival. Of course, I do that with the specific plan of being harder to kill, or knock out, or submit, or take down. I suspect I’d probably chop it back some on duration and intensity if I were just going for “health” (or at least, just floating in the GPP range, and shooting for a beach body, since ‘health’ is a pretty weak tea goal, as we’ve agreed), but I’d still go pretty vigorously every day. No point in getting up, otherwise.
There’s a lot more to living than just not-dying.
Awesome reply!
My mother always criticizes joggers that wear earbuds, especially when the area is really solitary. I feel her criticism is damn justified. I mean, you’re effectively nullifying one of your senses. It’s dangerous.
Imagine how easy it would be to catch a cat if it was listening to like Nyan Cat (because cats so obviously do). And it almost never turned its head around. Easy catch, right?
The ears detect what the eyes cannot when facing forward.
Yeah, I agree. But some people need moosik.
That Rippetoe quote always manages to make me chuckle. The simplicity of that quote is just so sharp and blunt at the same time, haha. Rippetoe quotes are gold.
It was very interesting seeing you take the ambiguity and make some sense of it. It’s some murky stuff. Fitness and health are definitely not the same thing.
I think that it’s fantastic that you are exploring this topic. I think clarifying the difference between fitness and health will really help people pinpoint their goals. And the more defined the goals, the more meaningful the effort because one would be working just exactly what they prioritize. One would know how to best optimize their training.
Thanks – as always – for the comment.
Great post Anthony. I completely agree the idea of training and eating for health is a misunderstood concept, as being slightly overweight and having no visible abdominal definition is healthy, but it doesn’t mean you look good, perform at your best or feel your best.
I like the idea of a backyard athlete, I think the benefits of hard strength training and athletic type exercise are underrated for the overall benefits they have beyond sport and vanity. For myself, i’ve learnt a huge amount about persistence, goal setting, removing my ego and patience from heavy strength training and dieting.
This post also reminded me of something I read by Mike Menzter, it was the idea we all have primal instincts of brutality, rage and aggression, but since our lifestyles are much more peaceful than times gone we don’t express that side of any more. However intense training and competitive sports are some of our only ways to unleash this side of us in a controlled environment.
Why focus on just being healthy, when you could train like a man and become superhuman!
Cool comment, Ollie. Never heard of that Mentzer quote. I’m familiar with that one….hmm….I can’t seem to remember it. By William Hazlitt maybe? Something about savage instincts or something.
Great post Anthony. I can relate to this, albeit through different circumstances. I have a very severe (read:fatal) allergy to nuts, which is a pain as I know how good they can be for you! 3 years ago I accidentally ingested a small quantity of peanuts, and within ten minutes I was unconscious on the floor having suffered an anaphylactic shock. When I woke up in hospital about 10 hours later I was somehow still alive despite, as they told me later, the doctors being fairly sure I wasn’t going to make it. They commented on how much epinephrine they injected into me to stop my immune system going completely crazy, which much more than they’d be able to give most people. They couldn’t believe how much my heart could take. I asked them if my level of fitness and conditioning played a part in my survival, they replied “definitely”. If that’s not motivation to hit the gym, I don’t know what is.
Good stuff Mike. Although, the thought of no peanut butter almost doesn’t make me want to live…just kidding, of course. Kind of…
It’s true and we never really think about it, tough it’s true that training almost any sport will eventually promote health, it’s not always the same thing being fit and healthy. I would even say that being a pro athlete is rarelly healthy, most of them have serious health issues specially after ending their careers, look at soccer players, they have their legs, ankles and knees all ruined, they suffer a lot of pain. Running marathons or being a pro cyclist is far from being healthy and so on. I know a lot of people who work really hard at the gym and they get out of the gym the first thing they do is light up a cigarrete, so it’s not about health in most cases it’s simply about the look, with a smaller percentage also interested in being strong. I might be naif but i believe it’s possible to combine all things tough nothing is guaranted, by being active, by lifting weights, walking, running i’m sure one can improve health or at least avoid or delay disease, and at the same time became stronger, resistant and fit for whatever goal one has in mind. Teddy story is a good lesson being fit can save our Lives in some ocasions, and it feels good to go through Life feeling good about how we look, about being strong, and being athletic. I like to train at least a bit like one, that’s why i sprint, run, walk, lift weights and whenever possible swimm, surf or go trekking. I wish Teddy a quick recovery.
Thanks for the reply. I think we can do everything, but we will always err to a certain side.
Thanks for the comments everyone… I learned my lesson and swapped out my earphones for a sleek sexy helmet. I am extremely blessed to have not suffered a more severe head injury. Hopefully if Anthony lets me take over his website again we’ll be able to do a recovery follow up.
As a studying Doctor of Physical Therapy, we view prior level of function as the single greatest determinant of injury prognosis. Every time you train you’re adding body armor, reducing vulnerability and working to prevent future healthcare mishaps. My old football coach used to say there’s no such thing as luck. Good things happen when preparation meets opportunity.
You can violate my stuff anytime.
Awesome article! Very insightful points that not a lot of people really think about. Health and fitness are two different things. Teddy’s story was a good example of just how important that can be.
Feel free to connect with me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/alex.levandoski.3 ..It’s always nice to meet fellow advocates. Nice post!
Thanks for the reply, Alex. You know where to find me if you want to connect.
Well, I don’ pursuit health nor fitness, I pursuit aesthetics.
To heavy a physique that is pleasant to the human eye.
Eye-candy physique if you will.
Aaron, I appreciate the honesty. It’s something most of us train for. Might not be everything, but it’s there. Those that avoid this reality usually fail.
I agree with what you have written. I had a similar situation happen; although on much smaller scale. After 2 years of pilates reformer training, I broke my ankle when I stepped off of a stair incorrectly, and fell face-forward onto the concrete. It was a very minor fracture, and I healed extremely quickly. I honestly believe that had I not been doing pilates for a while, the fracture would have been worse, and I might have received other injuries as well, from the fall itself. Additionally, I believe I would have taken much longer to heal. The HEALTH of your body has a lot to do with how your body receives an injury, and how well your body is able to heal from that injury. Isn’t it wonderful that we know this?!
Wonderful indeed.