Specializing vs. Generalizing: An Interview with Britt Ringstrom

Lately I have been thinking about fitness in terms of specializing and generalizing. With the increased popularity of sports like mixed martial arts that draw on multiple sports or types of fitness, it seems that generalizing is gaining popularity. This is somewhat of a false distinction, I admit. Even in a “specialized” sport like baseball, multiple skills are required. Likewise, MMA — which draws on the sports of wrestling, jujitsu, and kickboxing, among others — does not require every fitness capability.

Still, I think there is a difference between sports like baseball and MMA. I have also been wondering whether specializing vs. generalizing is analogous to family medicine vs. a specialty field like neurosurgery. Rightly or wrongly, neurosurgeons seem to enjoy more prestige than family practitioners. In general, do specializing athletes enjoy more prestige than generalizing athletes? If so, are the tables turning?

In a few weeks, I will post an interview with Marcus Taintor, a Duluth, Minnesota-based ultramarathon runner. Here, I share my interview with Britt Ringstrom, a CrossFit athlete and personal trainer, whom I met with in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, on August 14.

Britt Ringstrom

View of Athletic Trainers

My first question for Ringstrom was whether athletic trainers look down on one method (specializing or generalizing) or prefer one, with the acknowledgment that it is a hard question to answer definitively. “Being an all-around athlete is not everyone’s goal,” Ringstrom replied. Personal training is really about helping an individual reach his goal. But, Ringstrom added, “This doesn’t mean we wouldn’t want to try to get him better in other areas.” One of the things she likes about CrossFit, which she called “the works,” is that it prepares you to be “constantly ready for whatever’s thrown at you.” Ringstrom has found that many of her clients have broadened out from what they came to her for, weight loss being a common initial goal. She mentioned, though, that many trainers do believe that training method x (power lifting, for example) is the only way to train.

Sacrifices and Bonuses

Next, I asked Ringstrom about the sacrifices she has had to make in specific areas to do CrossFit, and about the unexpected bonuses there have been. She first explained that CrossFit is humbling. Gymnastics is one area that has been particularly hard for her. She and other CrossFit athletes have to re-teach their bodies how to do things. At the same time, they realize that things they thought they’d be fine at, they’re actually not. For example, Ringstrom had a solid background in power lifting, whereas pullups have been a challenge.

Ringstrom at the 2010 Elite Barbell AAPF Power Meet

Regarding sacrifices, specifically, she mentioned losing strength — though she has gained muscle endurance, she has lost some strength of the power or Olympic lifting type. She has also started to do intermittent fasting to drop weight, in order to make pullups easier. As far as unexpected bonuses, Ringstrom has been improving areas that haven’t always been her strengths. She has learned she can push herself much further than she realized, especially in competition, which she considers “the best time to learn.”₁ Reflecting on her experience so far in competition, she said, “As scary and uncomfortable as it can be, I learned a lot.” She also enjoys learning additional aspects of familiar fields, and acquiring a deeper understanding of techniques, such as the technicality of Olympic lifts.

Advantages of Generalizing

When I asked Ringstrom whether one or the other (again, specializing or generalizing) seems to have inherent value — or, all things considered, whether one is better — she answered that focusing on all-around fitness is better, providing three reasons. First, it pushes you both physically and mentally. Second, you’re ready to take on anything, even in real-life situations. In CrossFit, for instance, you’re learning and practicing very functional movements like squats that you do every day. Third, there is the feeling of completing a workout that seemed impossible. Despite her preference for generalizing, Ringstrom admitted CrossFit isn’t for everyone. “Some people live and breathe CrossFit,” she said,  “but it’s simply a tool. It’s a way to live, but not the only way to live.”

Ringstrom at the 2012 CrossFit

North Central Regional in Illinois

Generalizing Gaining Respect

Finally, I asked Ringstrom if she thinks generalizing is gaining more respect. Yes and no, she replied. “There’s still a large population of gurus, like the kettlebell world and body builders, who make fun of CrossFit. Some CrossFit athletes sacrifice form, and that’s looked down on. And it can be seen as an ADD sport.” When we talked briefly about the trendiness of MMA and how more and more MMA athletes are generalizing, Ringstrom agreed that generalizing might turn out to be something of a trend. She pointed out again that regimens like CrossFit are not for everyone, citing football players as the kind of athletes who wouldn’t benefit from many of the components of CrossFit.

Conclusions

As I reflect on my conversation with Ringstrom, I appreciate her open-minded attitude about CrossFit and generalizing. From the beginning of my inquiry into this subject, I have never felt strongly about one side over the other, although I am drawn more to generalizing. As she states, all-around fitness — to the level of a CrossFit athlete, especially — is not everyone’s goal. I agree with nearly all Ringstrom said, one quibble being that two of the advantages she gives to generalizing (pushing you physically and mentally, and the feeling of completing a seemingly impossible workout) seem to apply equally well to specializing. I look forward to getting a specialist’s view of things, and to writing a more research-based third post to wrap up my analysis.

1. For an opposing view about the value of competition, see the work of Alfie Kohn.

Exercise in Religion

▪ The Men’s Health Home Workout Bible

▪ Faster, Better, Stronger: Your Exercise Bible, for a Leaner, Healthier Body in Just 12 Weeks

▪ The Ultimate Body Shaping Bible

These are just a few of the many book titles connecting exercise with a holy text. In my last post, I briefly touched on the Christian bible in relation to exercise, and seeing The Men’s Health Home Workout Bible on a relative’s bookshelf prompted me to explore the subject of exercise in religion a bit further. This won’t be a comprehensive treatment of the subject, but I’d like to share some of the interesting information I found.  

In ancient Greece, the strongest association between exercise and religion seems to have been with the god Hermes, the patron divinity of athletics and gymnasiums (as well as crafty wiles, dreams of omen, and a host of other things₁) .

(Apparently, Hermes’ patronage wasn’t enough to secure him victory in one race at the mythical first Olympic games:  “[Zeus] held the games in honor of his victory over Kronos. The record of victors include Apollon [Apollo], who outran Hermes and beat Ares at boxing.”₂

Greek foot race

Source: http://europasicewolf.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/ancient-greek-olympics/

According to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, “Young members of the gymnasium often officiated in the Hermaia as ‘performers of the sacred rites’ (hieropoioi) . . . thus preparing them for carrying out their religious duties as future citizens of the polis.”₃

In prehistoric India, yoga and Hinduism seem to have emerged at around the same time in the Indus Valley Civilization. According to the American Yoga Association, “Stone carvings depicting figures in Yoga positions have been found in archeological sites in the Indus Valley dating back 5,000 years or more.”₄ The AMA’s website goes on to claim, “There is a common misconception that Yoga is rooted in Hinduism; on the contrary, Hinduism’s religious structures evolved much later and incorporated some of the practices of Yoga.”₅

 

Indus Valley archeological site

Source: National Geographic

Yet elements of Hinduism have been found in Indus Valley archeological sites as well.₆ Prof. Gavin Flood of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies helps explain why it is not so easy to say which came first, yoga or Hinduism:

“Firstly, in a strict sense there was no 'Hinduism' before modern times, although the sources of Hindu traditions are very ancient.

Secondly, Hinduism is not a single religion but embraces many 

traditions.

Thirdly, Hinduism has no definite starting point. The traditions which flow into Hinduism may go back several thousand years and some practitioners claim that the Hindu revelation is eternal.”₇

The American Yoga Association’s disclaimer that yoga is not rooted in Hinduism likely stems from a desire to reassure practitioners of any religion that yoga is compatible with their beliefs. It does seem that many schools of yoga, though probably not all, are compatible with other religions. One person who takes strong issue with this, however, is the Vatican’s chief exorcist, Father Gabriel Amorth. In the UK tabloid Daily Mail’s 2011 feature story on Father Amorth, among other unambiguous remarks appears his statement “Yoga is the Devil's work.”₈

Father Gabriel Amorth

Source: http://www.stpeterslist.com/1266/amorth-and-curses/

In Islam, daily prayer (salah or salat) provides one link to exercise. Although benefitting physically from exercise is not the purpose of prayer, the Muslim writer Aisha Stacey points out, “The daily performance of five prayers is in itself a form of exercise, its prescribed movements involve all the muscles and joints of the body . . . ”₉ While this sounds like a bit of an exaggeration (all the muscles?), it does make sense that moving between the various postures required in prayer—including bowing, kneeling, prostrating, sitting, and standing—provides a mini-workout of sorts. These postures, indeed the entire prayers, are performed more or less the same way by all Muslims, though if they are physically unable to pray in the traditional form, they may sit or lie down.₁₀

Muslims Pray on Madison Avenue

Source (including caption): http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=12170

While researching exercise and prayer in Islam, I found one study that recommends the motions and postures of salat prayer for rehabilitation.₁₁ The authors “postulated that salat, along with its various postures, can play a role in increasing psychological well-being including self-reliance and self-esteem, improving musculo-skeletal fitness, motor behavior and cerebral blood flow . . .” Involving “little effort,” this type of prayer may not be intense or even moderate exercise, but the authors did conclude that it is “beneficial for mental and physical health.”

For further reading on present-day exercise as religion, I recommend Sarah Bernard’s 2005 New York Magazine article “God Is in the Deltoids: A New Wave of Fitness Gurus Is Merging Religion and Exercise.” “It’s like gyms have become the new churches,” one of her sources states.

Despite the examples Bernard’s article cites, I think many religious people would object to this notion. The importance of the body, including the body’s condition before death and the afterlife, varies widely from religion to religion, and from age to age within each religion. Nevertheless, religious thought in general seems to be concerned with the fate of the immortal soul, with the condition of the mortal body a distant second. Slapping the word “bible” on your exercise book may help it sell better, but religion and exercise really occupy two different worlds.

1. http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/HermesGod.html

2. Herodotus, Histories, trans. Alfred Denis Godley (London: W. Heinemann, 1920),  5.7.10, http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/HermesMyths2.html#Olympic.

3. Michael Gagarin, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, digital edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 1:370.

4. “General Yoga Information,” American Yoga Association, accessed Aug. 11, 2012, http://www.americanyogaassociation.org/general.html.

5. Ibid.

6. Gavin Flood, “History of Hinduism,” BBC, last modified Aug. 24, 2001, accessed Aug. 11, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/history/history_1.shtml.

7. Ibid.

8. Nick Pisa, “Yoga Is the Work of the Devil, Says Vatican's Chief Exorcist (and He Doesn't Like Harry Potter Much Either,” Daily Mail, last modified Nov. 25, 2011, accessed Aug. 11, 2012,  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2066289/Yoga-work-devil-says-Vaticans-chief-exorcist-doesnt-like-Harry-Potter-either.html.

9. Aisha Stacey, “Health in Islam (part 4 of 4): Fitness and Exercise,” last modified Oct. 4, 2009, accessed Aug. 12, 2012, http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/1904/.

10. Vardit Rispler-Chaim, Disability in Islamic Law, digital edition (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2006),  24.

11. Mohammed Faruque Reza, Yuji Urakami, and Yukio Mano, “Evaluation of a New Physical Exercise Taken from Salat (Prayer) as a Short-Duration and Frequent Physical Activity in the Rehabilitation of Geriatric and Disabled Patients,” 2002, http://www.kfshrc.edu.sa/annals/Old/223_224/01-185.pdf.