Imagine you have hired an architect to design a custom home for you. And imagine that, after giving this architect your design parameters (number of floors, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, floorplan style, yard, garage, etc.), he returns with a design proposal that has only cursory details about floorplan, structural design and integrity, or functionality, but has an extensive plan for the light fixtures, drapes, and front door style. I imagine this architect would not have his job for very long.

Light fixtures, drapes, and door styles can be beautiful features and embellishments, but they belong on a completed home, not an empty dirt lot. They are perks, not necessities.
Now consider that physically, the majority of the population is an empty dirt lot. This is not an affront directed at the average person, but simply a reality of living in a culture and with a lifestyle that spends little energy on mastering human movement. The average person is a big pile of potential, but is generally lacking a foundation, much less a structure.

I’ll be the first to admit that browsing chic new styles of light fixtures and imagining the completed (decorated) product of a home is more tantalizing than talk of slab foundations, load-bearing walls, and zoning regulations. But we really have no business working on these embellishments when we don’t even have walls or ceilings on which to hang them. This is the classic mistake of someone discovering and coming into the movement and improvement culture. They’ve hardly begun to level out their dirt plot and they’ve already started to direct their energy towards interior design. This looks like the athlete who can’t perform a proper bodyweight squat or hold a hollow position being concerned with snatch PRs and butterfly kipping.

Let me be clear: there’s nothing wrong with being excited about these elements of fitness and training. I, in fact, encourage it. Their complexity and high-skill requirements make snatches and butterfly kipping undeniably interesting, fun, and impressive when performed well. The challenge and complexity of them is, in a large part, what keeps us so continually interested in pursuing the skill; but to neglect laying a foundation before directing our energy towards these embellishments is what contributes to high rates of injury, frustration, and poorly developed skills in the misguided athlete. Learning the basics takes time, and sometimes this might even feel boring in the same way that load-bearing walls don’t capture your interest as much as the storefront display in Restoration Hardware may. But if we’re not willing to spend time with the basics, we’re dooming ourselves to an unsustainable endeavor in human movement.

Never forget to ask yourself honestly: where am I in the building process? Put your time in where it will be well spent.

- Preston Sprimont

3/9/17

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  Hollow rocks - 4x15

  
  


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  Ring support holds - 4x max

  
  

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  For time:

  
  




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  30 box jumps (24”/20”)

  
  


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  1 mile run

  
  


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  30 push-ups

  
  


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  800m run

  
  


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  30 sit-ups

  
  


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  400m run