Distinguishing "normal" and "common" in health and fitness
As a practitioner of natural movement I'm often confronted by people (mainly in the comments online) telling me that I should do something "normal" to train.
I can 100% understand why people say this. If your paradigm for health and fitness involves using machines in the gym, some long haired guy playing the floor is lava for his fitness is going to seem pretty weird. You might even be tempted to say something to me. That's ok. I get it.
However, despite the fact that I understand why people tell me to do something "normal" doesn't mean that I don't think they're making a critical mistake in their reasoning.
Here's the thing. When most people tell me to do something "normal", I believe that they are confusing the term "normal" with the term "common", and that can lead us astray.
So what is the difference between "normal" and "common"?
According to Google, here's how we define each term:
Normal - conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.
Common - occurring, found, or done often; prevalent
They're similar for sure, but the definition of "common" places a lot of emphasis on how often the thing occurs (i.e. how prevalent it is). While there's flavours of that in the definition of "normal", it uses words like standard and expected. And while things might be standard and expected because they are common, there could be other reasons. I therefore like to think of things that are "normal" as having a logical basis to them, whereas things that are "common" simply happen a lot.
When it comes to fitness, which would you prefer? The logical thing or the one that everyone does (noting that they can be the same, but aren't always)?
I'll take the logical one (i.e. the normal one) every time. If it happens to be common, awesome. If not, no worries.
So next time you see something out of the ordinary and think "that's not normal", ask yourself this.
Is it really not "normal", or is it just "uncommon"?
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