Does Your Mind Restrain Your Body's Abilities?

©2011 Heinz R. Gisel

In our post-modern Societies we are well-informed, about everything, instantly. No more just by the News networks but also by our friends and colleges via social networks. We have become the instant know-it-all and the instant gratification society. We have no time to wait, if we want something, we want it now, We are no more interested in what happens in the future, we are wholly immersed in the presence, the Right Now moment! Nowhere is this more visible than in Health-care and Anti-Aging: If we have to lose weight, we are only interested in what works the fastest; if we discover wrinkles or sagging skin, we have to eliminate the problem right away. For every symptom of aging there is a drug that promises instant remedy, lack of libido, erectile dysfunction, cholesterol and so on. It is well known that there are also Nutritional Supplements that have no side effects, but unless they work as fast as Drugs, we don't take them. The mantra is: I want it now; I deal with the consequences later.

Of course this mentality doesn't stop at drugs, people subject themselves to surgeries that can't be reversed, including the replacement of body parts; there are implants and transplants for purely vanity reasons. This trend has taken a firm hold in leisure as well as in professional Sports, where many - even amateur athletes have become complacent, ignoring their physical limits, because if injury occurs, it can be mended with manufactured body parts. Many sports disciplines are thriving on dare-devil attitudes of the athletes competing in fierce competition. They throw-in their health with no compunction, ignoring the risk of injury and permanent disability.

But there is a safer alternative which is mostly overlooked: rather than anticipating injury, we can forestall it by analyzing our Physical Ability, Potential and Limits. If this sounds like a no-brainer, consider this: Health-care systems don't care for Health, they only kick-in after Injury or Disease occur. In this setting, athletes are checked for "normal" vital signs, where "normal" is defined by a set of numbers correlated with an arbitrarily accepted benchmark. But in Predictive Care we look at the Body's ability to produce Energy, how efficient it produces and uses Energy. how it handles Stress and recovers from Stress - in short, we measure the person's Physical Ability and Limits. The question here is, What do we want to know and need to know to use our physical ability with liberty, but without fear?

What you need to know

• are you physically up to the task - do you have the physical ability to reach your goal
• do you have any hidden physical limitations that preclude you from prevailing
• what is the current benchmark I want to push and do I have the physiological capacity

Clearly, entering into any area requiring physical work beyond what we are used to, bears the risk of injury or fatigue. Of course, if we contemplate to begin an athletic career, we should evaluate the physiological viability in order to avoid later disappointment. For example, an obese kid is probably not a good candidate for a career in Ballet Dancing, and a short stature boy may never prevail in Basket Ball. Likewise, the casual Sunday cyclist may never be able to attain the physique of Lance Armstrong. With increasingly fierce athletic contests, where fraction of seconds distinguishes joy from tears - there is no room for errors in judgment of one's physical abilities, and we can't resort to trial and error as we used to. But the methodology and technology is there to objectively and reproducibly test the athlete's physical properties - we just need to refocus our minds from measuring weakness to measuring the strengths.

Resources:

What and how to test your physical abilities for reaching your life's dream and objective

ACSM American College of Sports Medicine.

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