Priorities

There seems to be a lot of confusion around priorities in physical health and fitness, especially for non-athletes. Components such as flexibility, endurance, hypertrophy, strength are all important but in what framework?

In the words of Pavel Tsatsouline "as long as the person has the required mobility, symmetry and health, the priority is always strength.  Strength is the mother quality of all physical qualities". 

So before strength we must look at mobility and symmetry first.  This is often the quiet elephant in the room because the importance is crucial and completely overlooked.  If your car (body) is out of alignment then putting in a bigger engine or making it go faster will only fast-track problems.  It's called laying fitness over dysfunction. It's also common sense and not that complicated.

Using the analogy of an aeroplane;

Each plane is engineered from the start to perform a certain way.  Some are designed for speed, others to carry cargo, acrobatics, crop-dusting etc.  They're all different.  And they need servicing as they go and this is dictated by the amount of work they do (ie. recorded engine hours).  Servicing is the preventative work that keeps all things aligned so that the machine functions safely in the way it was designed to and each component must be replaced or re-conditioned after a certain amount of work / operating hours. 

Given the importance of safety at play here, these maintenance and servicing requirements are non-negotiable and mandatory for safety compliance world-wide. 

The human body is a way more complex machine but the concept is identical.  Maintain the design parameters (ie. mobility and symmetry) as the safe and stable foundations upon all else to function.  We too have a design-life (closer to 100 years) and maintenance has a lot to do with reaching it by way of physical health.  

Strength alone will not build the foundation but it's certainly the priority once it's laid.