Why specialize?!?!??!

For decades people have felt that you have to specialize your training to your sport. There is no need to specialize training. In fact it is possible to get more gains through not specializing. In this case specialized training refers to programs where the emphasis is on sport specific training. If that is what specialized training is, non-specialized training is doing the opposite. This means it is just training hard in a variety of ways to get better fit across broad measures. Non-specialized training is more beneficial to all but a select few athletes.

There can be many reasons why an athlete would choose not to specialize his training. However the reason is not important, the athlete is making a good choice to get better across many measures. Any athlete should always want to get better across the ten basic measures of fitness. Those measures are accuracy, agility, balance, cardio endurance, coordination, flexibility, power, speed, stamina, and strength. When an athlete is able to get better across all of these, he becomes a better athlete. The best athletes in many fields are able to be good at many sports because of their grasp on these ten traits. Look at pro athletes for an example. Yes they are specialized in one sport, but many could probably play another sports at a close to professional level.

The biggest reason though to not specialize is that it is possible to get stronger and faster by not specializing. When you specialize you have to cut out some part of fitness to focus on another. That part missing is no less important to your overall fitness level. The more overall fit an athlete is, the better he will be at any sport.

There are times when specializing is good. If you are an athlete training for the Olympics in 100m dash, by all means just focus on sprinting. However there might be some speed you lose by not lifting weights to get stronger. If you want to be very good at a very narrow focused skill set, by all means specialize. If you are someone who just wants to be better at life in general, non-specialized training will be the best for you.

Workout: Buy in was 100 double unders, then 30-20-10 of sandbag lunges, and sandbag presses. Total time was 7:07. The double unders were about 1:14. This is over a minute improvement over last time. I was able to do 77 double unders in a row! Most I have done by about 15.

Inspirational Quote: “World-Class Fitness in 100 Words: -Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. – Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast. –Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. –Regularly learn and play new sports.” –crossfit.com