strength and skill or spirit?

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Permalink Reply by Rhonda Stonaker on January 11, 2010 at 4:24pm

To quote Walter from this morning, while fighting through box jumps:
"It's mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter."

I need to go back and read Musashi's The Book of Five Rings again - really good stuff for anyone who competes at anything. I'm quite sure I could use some toning up in this area...

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Permalink Reply by Troy Dodson on January 13, 2010 at 10:15pm

This is a fantastic topic.....I appreciate you making everyone here think more.......including myself.

Based on the title of your post I think it is safe to say that you are essentially asking the following:

Is strength and/or skill more important to develop than spirit, or vice versa?

And the conclusion after the quote from the book "Musashi" suggests that Spirit may be more important than the former two - "to strengthen the spirit, because surely the body will fall into line if the soul be strong".....

To an extent, I agree with that statement, but I also say, it depends. I know, I say that quite a bit. But here is why.

You, the athlete, are an integrated bundle of dynamic systems and we can clearly extrapolate 9 attributes from these systems.

Here is a crude representation (I made this with a free (read crappy) version of "Visio"....

Notice how the athlete is in the middle. Every attribute on the outside effects and can/will have an effect on develop the athlete.

You've got Spirit, Speed, Strength, Sustenance (Nutrition), Style, Stamina, Skill, Suppleness, and Structure. Is Spirit important? Yes! Strength, yes! Stamina, yes! All of these skill sets and systems are important!

If any one of these attributes is lacking, or is under developed, then yes, the athlete will benefit from work that is done in the under developed area. However, we can look at the same model in a different way. You can take the athlete out of the middle, and replace him/her with any specific attribute that the athlete desires to develop - lets say Strength. So I want to help an athlete get stronger - now I can look at the other 8 attributes from the vantage point of what is lacking. Maybe the athlete has poor speed on the barbell, so let's work speed today, perhaps speed is ok, but their posture is crap - ok, let's work on the structure with some active mobility, or to make this more relevant to your post let's assume that the athlete is lacking spirit. That could mean many things - perhaps their belief system isn't developed enough, anyone ever heard or said/thought something like this: "I've never really been very good at Overhead squats anyways" - lack of confidence or "This is too heavy" - lack of belief - said when bar speed and posture both are good during movement, too heavy - yeah right!

So you can see how if an athlete is lacking in spirit and this can effect their strength and skill whereas it can also be strength work that develops the spirit. I have seen more than one new athlete benefit with new found confidence from improved strength. So, it ultimately, all depends on the athlete and what is most important for them at that particular time.

What works well for one athlete doesn't necessarily work well for you. We've all witnessed or have fallen prey to this probably on more than one occasion:

Superstud athlete performs great, looks great, etc. and because we all wanna be like him we do what? Copy his workout routine. Drink the same sports drink. Wear the same brand of clothing, etc.

This is single-factor thinking and it is prevalent in our society. For the average American, they get this type of thinking reinforced for them 3-5 hours per day just by watching TV alone as commercials and advertising are all the same thing in the sense that they are saying "Buy this one thing and it will change your life".

So it is natural for us to gravitate towards this type of thinking when it comes to our training programs. If you develop your spirit your body will surely fall into line.....maybe, or maybe not. It depends. Nothing about the body is that simple.

This is a great discussion point. I look forward to hearing everyones thoughts on your post!

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Permalink Reply by Chris Leach on January 14, 2010 at 3:44pm

Troy nailed it.
To reinforce and sum up what he said "It matters when it matters."

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Graves on January 17, 2010 at 12:58pm

Great topic. I would add that the key to all this is reduction of threat. There is a great article in the latest Z Health newsletter. I encourage everyone to read, "T is for Threat". If you don't get the newsletter, go to ZHealth.net and subscribe.

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