The maori of New Zealand are Generalist Athletes as they had a wide range of skills from hunting and diving to long distance running of sometimes up to 1000kms and also they were fierce warriors during the iwi wars and arrival of the early european settlers.
The Generalist Athlete.
The term "Generalist Athlete" refers to to a person who has a wide range of developed personal skills, mentally and most importantly physically.
A Generalist athlete is someone who can call upon the range of practical skills to deal with real world situations in an efficient and effective manner using many of the fundamental natural movements such as running, jumping, climbing, throwing, swimming, crawling, defending, lifting or a combination of skills may be required like climbing whilst carrying, or swimming while throwing for example. Natural adaptive ability is needed to vary techniques in the most practical manner possible.
A Generalist will have not quite the endurance of a long distance runner, nor the ballistic ability of a 100m sprinter, but finds a medium between the two extremes.
This allow the generalist to call upon either ends of the spectrum without much strain on the body and respiratory system.
The Specialist Athlete.
The Specialist Athlete focuses primarily on training for one action only.
Again for example, the 100m sprinter.
A professional sprinter can peel out 100m in record time, the dynamic tension in the athlete's body is finely tuned for short bursts of high intensity locomotion.
But, Get the same sprinter to run 5kms while carrying another person then swim and defend, no doubt the sprinter will fail or be close to failure.
This is due to training a specific function only for a set amount of time.
Allot of people think that to achieve a high level of generalisation one has to do away with specialisation of techniques.
On the surface this may seem correct as spending time training ALL movements will encourage a wider skill base as opposed to training just one or two movements.
This is correct to an extent. Initial training programmes for beginners should incorporate all types of movement so the brain and and muscles get used to functioning in such a way.
But training this way will only lead to levels of basic ability across the board of natural movement.
Once a person has achieved acceptable levels of personal skills a certain degree of specialisation is needed to be able to "vary" techniques if needed
Take swimming for example.
One may have the physical ability to swim many kms but lack the lung capacity to dive down 10 metres. to free dive down 10 metres will take allot of practice and the technique will vary.
This is where specialisation comes in.
anyone can say they can swim, but to be able to dive or jump into water from heights, or dive down deep or hold their breath for a long period of time or swim while carrying someone, these actions are all classed as swimming, but the technique will vary for each one.
So to become a generalist one must specialize in each action to allow for variation of technique.
Hunter Gatherer's can be considered as and are a good example of "Natural Generalist Athletes".
They have a high level of practical skills that allow them to take full advantage of their environment in order to survive.
Perhaps they could even be called specialists also as they have general physical ability but are also specialists of their given environment ??
The term "Generalist Athlete" refers to to a person who has a wide range of developed personal skills, mentally and most importantly physically.
A Generalist athlete is someone who can call upon the range of practical skills to deal with real world situations in an efficient and effective manner using many of the fundamental natural movements such as running, jumping, climbing, throwing, swimming, crawling, defending, lifting or a combination of skills may be required like climbing whilst carrying, or swimming while throwing for example. Natural adaptive ability is needed to vary techniques in the most practical manner possible.
A Generalist will have not quite the endurance of a long distance runner, nor the ballistic ability of a 100m sprinter, but finds a medium between the two extremes.
This allow the generalist to call upon either ends of the spectrum without much strain on the body and respiratory system.
The Specialist Athlete.
The Specialist Athlete focuses primarily on training for one action only.
Again for example, the 100m sprinter.
A professional sprinter can peel out 100m in record time, the dynamic tension in the athlete's body is finely tuned for short bursts of high intensity locomotion.
But, Get the same sprinter to run 5kms while carrying another person then swim and defend, no doubt the sprinter will fail or be close to failure.
This is due to training a specific function only for a set amount of time.
Allot of people think that to achieve a high level of generalisation one has to do away with specialisation of techniques.
On the surface this may seem correct as spending time training ALL movements will encourage a wider skill base as opposed to training just one or two movements.
This is correct to an extent. Initial training programmes for beginners should incorporate all types of movement so the brain and and muscles get used to functioning in such a way.
But training this way will only lead to levels of basic ability across the board of natural movement.
Once a person has achieved acceptable levels of personal skills a certain degree of specialisation is needed to be able to "vary" techniques if needed
Take swimming for example.
One may have the physical ability to swim many kms but lack the lung capacity to dive down 10 metres. to free dive down 10 metres will take allot of practice and the technique will vary.
This is where specialisation comes in.
anyone can say they can swim, but to be able to dive or jump into water from heights, or dive down deep or hold their breath for a long period of time or swim while carrying someone, these actions are all classed as swimming, but the technique will vary for each one.
So to become a generalist one must specialize in each action to allow for variation of technique.
Hunter Gatherer's can be considered as and are a good example of "Natural Generalist Athletes".
They have a high level of practical skills that allow them to take full advantage of their environment in order to survive.
Perhaps they could even be called specialists also as they have general physical ability but are also specialists of their given environment ??
Dave.
My friends and I equate our skills much like the generalist but also as specialist by saying we are "utility." This can be described as the baseball player (sorry, I'm American) that can play every position on the field but usually isn't the BEST at any particular position. We quantify utility as being able to perform a task at an "above average" level; meaning, if we can do it better than 51% of the people, then we can claim it as a skill to put in our "utility" tool belt. The goal is to obtain as many of these skills performing them at this level or higher.
ReplyDeletethanks for the comment chris.
ReplyDeleteIm glad you see the need to train utility movements. I feel they should be trained by all, as there is nothing more practical than human movement.
keep it up,
Dave.