While the context of the novel is Catholic theology, what drew me to it was the discussions of principles, namely the principles involved in the pursuit of intellect. Not surprisingly, A.G. Sertillanges’ work “The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods” also had me thinking about implications in the gym.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Everything is in everything, and partitions are only possible by abstraction. To abstract is not to lie, says the proverb: abstrahere non est mentiri; but that is on condition that the process of abstraction which distinguishes, methodically isolates, concentrates its light on a point, does not separate from its immediate object of study other things more or less directly belonging to it. To cut an object away from its connections is to present it falsely, for its links are part of itself.”
While the comments section on YouTube and the Internet forums of most meathead posts would beg to differ, there’s nothing secular about (fitness) movement. Sure, over time, the nature of our bodies and the tasks we come up against tend to inform best some practices, but the reality is that movement styles don’t fit into the neat boxes we’ve drawn. The nature of movement in gymnastics isn’t particularly different (in principal) than that of yoga or weightlifting. Elbows bend the ways elbows bend and hips function as hips, regardless as to whether you call them “CrossFit hips” or “Barre Method Hips”. This assumption would corroborate Sertillanges’ assertion that “everything is in everything” and so on.
While it pays to dive into the “partitions” of fitness to advance our practice of say powerlifting, it also pays to come back and maintain awareness of the simple truth that the focus on the abstraction doesn’t remove the connection of “things more or less directly belonging to it.” After all, the principles that make powerlifting unique aren’t confined to powerlifting at all. Even the rules of where to put your feet and how to hold your hands for a deadlift seem to slip through our fingers when we observe that you ought to put your feet exactly in this place, except for when you don’t. In addition, you ought to hold your back at this precise angle, except for, of course, the cases in which people don’t.
The medical community wrestles with the same challenges. To further understand the liver, we have specialists dive into the micro view of their liver oriented specialty. The irony, of course, is the notion of separating the body into parts understand it in theory with the hopes of providing insight to a bodily system that can never be separated into its parts in practice. And, so goes the story for human movement, as well.
“Everything is in everything.”
Logan Gelbrich
@functionalcoach
6/13/17 WOD
Complete 4 rounds for quality of:
3 Banded Lever Holds (on Bar)
6 Alternating Cartwheels
9 Plate Slides
Then, EMOM 12
Minute 1: :40 Max Floor Squats
Minute 2: :40 Max Handstand Head Touches
Minute 3: :40 Max Box Jump Overs