Good at a Lot, Great at None: Why I Chose Fitness Over Specialization

Ever since I was a kid, I've had a tendency to get hyperfocused on one thing at a time. When it was baseball season, I was all in on baseball. When basketball season rolled around, that became my entire world.

I've carried that same trait into fitness for the last 20 years.

At different points, I've gone all in on powerlifting and trying to get as strong as possible. Then bodybuilding and getting as big as possible. Then CrossFit. If I'm being honest, I got pretty obsessed with each one. I'd consume every article, podcast, YouTube video, and Instagram post I could find and try to learn everything there was to know.

I got pretty good at each of them. But I never got great. Not even close.

No matter what the focus was, the same two problems kept showing up. I was either constantly dealing with aches and pains that I tried to ignore and push through, or I was dissatisfied with where I was. I wasn't strong enough, big enough, lean enough, or CrossFit-y enough. Or I'd feel a lovely combo of both emotional and physical pain.

The harder I tried, the more my body seemed to fight back and the less I enjoyed training.

Eventually I realized I could take that same obsessive energy and point it somewhere else. Instead of chasing one specific fitness goal, I started chasing fitness itself.

I want to be strong. I want some muscle. I want good conditioning. And I don't want to feel like my body is falling apart all the time.

In most areas of life, I'm above average but not exceptional. Lately I've been realizing that's a pretty good place to be.

Personal justification always feels good, so the way I justify it to myself is simple: real life doesn't ask me to be an elite powerlifter, bodybuilder, or CrossFitter. It asks me to be strong enough to handle whatever comes up, fit enough to not get smoked on a hike or pickup game, and muscular enough that I feel good about how I look.

Going all in on one thing is fine, but it comes with tradeoffs.

The tradeoff I'm willing to make is that I'll never out-squat the powerlifter or out-run the runner. That's okay.

What I want is fitness. To me, that's a combination of strength, muscle, conditioning, and not feeling like shit.

I'm learning to be okay with being pretty good at a lot of things instead of great at one thing. If I'm honest, that fits what I need at this stage of life.

I'm training to be strong, move well, like how I look, and not fall apart.

Not a bad setup.