Posted by A lot of the time when we are trying to improve ourselves we overlook the basics. We think can just skip over them, that they are too obvious, or that they are just too simple to get us where we want to go; and so we look for something more advanced to get us there faster. I have been guilty of this myself, but it didn’t get me anywhere. The problem is that without the basics in place first the more advanced techniques have nothing to work off of and support their implementation. The basics are the basics for a reason, you need them first.
I see this all the time in the fitness community; people are always grasping onto the latest trend for the greatest new exercise, such as replacing push-ups with burpess, forgetting that the research was done on people who could already do the basics. You cannot just dive in the deep end and expect to come out unharmed. The same happens with nutrition, people are eating acai berries or whatever the latest “super-food” is by the pound, while still drinking gallons of soda and expecting to get results. It just doesn’t work that way.
This popular approach to your health is so backwards that if you change the context is becomes utterly ridiculous. Imagine you are building a house, but you decide to skip over the walls and floors stage and go straight to fancy lighting. It’s not going to work; you have nowhere to install them. It would be the same as a car with no engine or wheels, it might have the best sound system around but it wouldn’t be going anywhere.
The only reason we don’t do the basics that has some truth to it is that they won’t be able to take you all the way to where you want to be, but this doesn’t mean they are not needed. Just like you need to put up the walls first you need to get the basic movement patterns and nutritional changes down first before moving on. They serve as the foundational first steps. The basics also tend to be what give the most bang for your buck: creating the most change for the least effort. The very reason they became part of what is considered the basics. They may seem too simple, but they have the potential for massive change (check out my other blog explaining the math behind this).
While you will eventually need advanced techniques, you cannot use them on their own. True success always begins with the basics. If you liked this blog let me know in the comments below, and subscribe to my newsletter so you never miss a future posting.
Max
