Risk vs. reward. When it comes to human movement, what will you risk in body positioning to get what you want? Let’s take a rounded spine while deadlifting as a example. Maybe Rich Fronning is trying to win the CrossFit Games, and he realizes on his last workout of 405# deadlifts that if he allows his back to round because he is fatigued, he will finish first and win his heat, and possibly the Games. He risks damage to various tissues and bones, but… It may be worth it to him. Maybe a baseball pitcher knows that with a tweak of his technique, he can get his 93 m.p.h. fastball up to a 97 m.p.h fastball. In doing so, he secures himself a multi-million dollar contract, even though he knows he’s probably going to need Tommy John Surgery in the next 5-10 years. The risk may be worth it to him. Now lets say YOU are doing a workout with deadlifts. Will you choose the weight you can manage, or the weight you want to use? What’s your risk vs. reward? The risk is you herniate a disk, pull a muscle in your back, or even scrape your shin!! The reward is… you finish a workout. Is the risk worth it to you? Now I realize we are competitive as a group. We take our lives and what we achieve seriously. Remember, though, that it’s just workout. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind:
- The poor positioning that you practice in one movement will transfer over to another.
- Sacrificing good form will eat away at potential benefits of the exercise you are performing.
- Your bad form is a ticking time bomb. You may get away with it unscathed today. Eventually though, it will manifest itself by way of pain.This is the tricky one. If we don’t feel the consequences immediately, the risk we’re taking may not seem like a risk at all.
These are the choices we must make. Every choice we make, in fact, has a risk vs. reward equation to it. So what are you willing to gamble to get the result you want?
Information for this post was referenced from the book Becoming A Supple Leopard, by Kelly Starrett.
