Conventional strength training believes that if you increase the size and strength of each of these parts, somehow magically the whole will become better. Over the years hundred thousand dollar bodybuilding machines evolved to shackle us in place, forcing the load to be localized as much as possible. These machines substituted efficiency for us and they began the neural adaptation of dumbing down our coordination.
Likewise, in order to lift the heaviest possible weight, powerlifting created three ultra-short range gross motor lifts. Like bodybuilding, these so-called power-lifts cause us to move less and less until, through injury and adaptation, one’s mobility becomes non-existent. The belief that isolating these parts would make us bigger and stronger, and would cause us to become more fit and to perform better, is a direct result of this compartmentalized view of anatomy.
But as we all know, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Bodybuilding and powerlifting, moving in isolated planes, fail to address how we move in the real world: three dimensionally. They ignore the rotary, angular/diagonal, as well as the most important synergistic nature of human performance.
We are actually what modern scientists describe as a “double bag” system. The inner bag contains hard tissue: bones and cartilage. Where it is cling-wrapped around the bones it is called periosteum, and where it wraps the ends of bones together it’s called joint capsule. The outer bag contains an electric jelly that we call muscle. Where it wraps the muscle we call it fascia, and where it tacks down to the inner bag we call it a muscle attachment or insertion point.
Forcing the isolation belief onto the reality of our double bag system is like firing a cannon from a canoe: the detonation may happen, but with adverse catastrophic results.
So how can we train to improve the health and fitness of the entire double bag system?