Generalist vs. Specialist: Can we build a body that is versatile, competent, adaptable, and efficient?

Nowadays, we tend to admire the greatest specialists , those people who devote a lot of time to perfecting their practice.

Whether it's a 100-meter sprinter who spends more than 20 years training to go under the 10-second mark, or a doctor who spends more than 40 years researching and gathering all the knowledge on a single, extremely rare disease...

The Specialist is often the one who represents the highest level of competence, mastery of a subject or art, the expert.

However, this quest for excellence comes at a price.

For the athlete, these long years of tirelessly repeating the same movements, of undergoing the same stresses again and again, weaken the body and injure it. For the expert at work, he realizes (midlife crisis for example) that outside of his work, he can do absolutely nothing else.

Although it is not a completely new concept, it is Ido Portal, the movement coach behind Movement Culture , who first promotes the idea of ​​becoming a generalist: a jack of all trades.

While the Specialist's physical practice will be largely limited to movements or exercises with the aim of directly improving his specialization, the Generalist is oriented towards the exploration and development of his general movement potential .

In this article, we will examine in detail the benefits, advantages, and limitations of each of these two approaches to performance, skill acquisition, and longevity. Which approach should be favored? Who is it suitable for? At what stage of development?

We will try to answer the existential question: what is the optimal physical practice to become a complete, versatile human being , capable of doing everything and adapting to all circumstances?

Great program! Very good reading my move.

The human body is designed for adaptability

If you have practiced a sport for many years, you will have already noticed how your body has changed, how it has adapted to your practice.

Your body is an ultra-sophisticated machine, which adapts to the stimuli you give it .

If you do weight training, the results are very visible. Just look at a before photo and you'll quickly realize whether you're bulkier or not.

But the adaptations are not only aesthetic.

Most often, you can easily identify someone's physical practice by their posture, certain muscular imbalances, the development of certain areas of the body compared to others, a general archetype...

The boxer has his shoulders forward because of the guard, the wrestler has a very muscular neck and elbows that cannot fully unfold, the yogi is thin and very flexible, the fitness girl has overdeveloped glutes compared to the rest of her legs, the cyclist is very thin, with a curved back, and very dry, the gymnast is muscular and defined in the upper body...

Your body is therefore a reflection of your physical activity .

The Specialist's Perspective

Anyone who wants to become the best at a sport has every interest in harnessing the body's adaptive power to their advantage.

You want to jump higher, throw further, lift heavier, run faster... well, repeat the same movements over and over again and they will improve your performance.

For such a level of excellence, you cannot afford any distractions.

Your only goal is to improve each micro-movement that you will be able to refine as close as possible to perfect execution .

The price paid :

• repeated injuries to the same body parts used excessively
• muscular imbalances in very specific sports
• restrictions of movement in certain joints that are not used much
• fatigue and wear
• the number of skills reduced (only those of the sport practiced)

That makes perfect sense!

Any distractions, any practices other than the one you want to improve, will be less training time and volume compared to your opponent.

So, to be better at your sport, it is necessary to practice that sport and accept the sacrifice that goes with it .

You don't get anything for nothing.

The General Practitioner's Perspective

Conversely, the General Practitioner does not necessarily want to be the best in a sport.

He wants to develop a body that can do everything . A body that is flexible, strong, agile, coordinated, and skillful, that can push, pull, climb, jump, swim, lift, throw, fight, dance...

It's the idea of ​​being able to respond to any stimulus and even if the response you give isn't the best, most effective one, you're still able to give one.

This approach therefore does not promote maximum performance, the ultimate level of mastery, the gold medal at the Olympic Games, or the world record in a field,

but it's about being competent , versatile and able to manage in a multitude of areas, and being competent enough to enjoy a greater number of physical activities.

It's being able to do a CrossFit WOD and finish in the top 10%, while also being able to hold 5 rounds of Muay Thai sparring, being able to rock climb in the forest, juggle a soccer ball and be able to play basketball on Sundays.

Even if you have never practiced a particular sport, you have confidence in the fact that you will not be catastrophic the first time you try, and on the contrary, you will quickly learn and gain skills.

So you don't work on a limited set of movements but you try to incorporate several stimuli : you work on the floor, head upside down, very intense, very gentle, suspended, alone, with a partner...

You try to expand your range of movement in all directions.

Pay attention to the context

Sounds wonderful being a GP, right?

Most people don't have the ambition to be a world champion in the sport they love anyway, so why not become good at lots of things instead? What's the point of specializing if the "skills for injuries" trade isn't that advantageous...?

You might even be wondering why you haven't thought about it like this before? Of course you want to be able to walk on your hands, dance, swim, know how to fight, lift heavy, do one-armed pull-ups... Who wouldn't want that?

Why aren't we taught this from the beginning? It makes so much sense! Where do I start? What exercises? How do I get good at dancing, martial arts, and CrossFit all at the same time? Where's your awesome 6-week movement program? How much does it cost?

Calm down! Breathe… Let’s refocus ^^

As with all things physical, it's not black and white. There's no better or worse way.

No, the General Practitioner is not better than the Specialist! It's all a matter of context.

Even if on paper the idea of ​​being a generalist is very attractive, you will quickly see that it is not suitable for everyone , in all scenarios, for all objectives.

We will then define what a General Practitioner really is , how one becomes one and also understand the limits of this approach.

The General Practitioner doesn't exist.

You get it, we are the most adaptable animal in the animal kingdom.

This is partly one of the reasons that propelled us to the top of the food chain, a body capable of fleeing predators, climbing, swimming, jumping, running long distances to hunt, throwing objects… is a powerful tool to make the most of this experience of life on Earth.

That being said, how can we exploit our full physical potential?

Should I do a little bit of everything and risk never becoming good at any sport? Or should I focus on one sport thoroughly, gaining proficiency but risking injury?

The truth is, being a GP is an impossible task!

There are far too many things (literally an infinite number of things) to learn in this world, that one human lifetime will never be enough to truly be able to do everything.

This is where the concept of the General Practitioner has once again been abused by our dear movement coaches (Instagrammers) who constantly talk about reconnecting with oneself, with one's primal side and with the natural functions of the body, but who forget one essential thing:

To become a Generalist, you must first be a Specialist.

Indeed, to be competent in a field, one must devote years to its practice. One must therefore agree to “sacrifice” a portion of one’s life to be able to extract technical knowledge, take the time to digest new information and thus integrate it.

If today you are able to ride a bike without having to train every day, it is because you spent time learning this skill when you were little, then perfecting your movement to the point where now, knowing how to ride a bike is an integral part of your motor patterns.

So you have unlocked this skill for life.

Now, if you extend this logic to mastering a sport like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Breakdancing, rock climbing… You have to spend several years of regular training specific to that sport to be able to integrate the techniques and use them for the rest of your life.

How many years exactly? It depends on your feelings, your goals, and what you consider a sufficient level of mastery.

This could mean reaching a black belt for someone (12, 15 years) or a purple belt (4, 5 years). It's personal.

So, repeating this cyclically with several sports, for example doing 4 years of Gymnastics, followed by 3 years of Capoeira, followed by 3 years of Weightlifting, then 5 years of Salsa…

After a while, you accumulate all these skills and become what you might call a Generalist.

A General Practitioner is therefore a succession of Specialists.

This is why context is very important.

If you look at a movement coach like Ido Portal, who has been doing sports since he was a child, with about fifteen years of Capoeira, then 7 years of Gymnastics, weightlifting, boxing, dance... you understand that he did not become an expert in movement, only by doing movement.

So you can't become a Generalist without having spent a lot of time in several disciplines and having acquired a wide range of skills.

In this sense, the General Practitioner does not exist.

As we said at the beginning, your body is a reflection of your sports. You are the combination of everything you have learned, your experiences, your preferences for this or that sport, your dedication, your own estimation of what competence is...

It's very subjective.

So you create your own skill set because you simply choose.

I am personally the result of Football, Dance, Calisthenics, Combat Sports, Weightlifting… and many other things along the way.

This is what some call your motion print.

It is the ability to rotate the room and see both sides, zoom in and specialize if needed, and step back to see the whole picture if needed,

It's about using the periphery while staying within the frame as much as possible, it's about being able to switch between perspectives in response to the context you're in.

This is where the following question emerges:

Is movement training, which promotes adaptability and the idea of ​​the Generalist, not also another form of specialization ?

The problem of movement training

For several years, we have seen the emergence of Movement Coaches and the practice of movement.

Some people associate it with the notion of regaining joint mobility, a better ability to move, being able to perform fundamental human movements, a mind-body connection, rediscovering one's animal side, a connection to nature, functional training, strength training, etc.

In short, being able to move more freely and be able to do lots of things.

Unfortunately, there is often a huge gap between concept and implementation.

The idea behind the movement training rooms is magnificent : to allow the general population to change their relationship with their body, with physical training and to introduce them to the few key concepts of:

• the importance of adding diversity to one's physical practice,
• to constantly learn new skills,
• to break out of the sometimes toxic paradigm of modern fitness and the race for quick, short-term results,
• raise your expectations of what you want your body to be able to do,
• have a more playful, more organic and more fun practice…

A laudable objective but which sometimes lacks appropriate implementation for the general population.

As you understood with the first part of this article, understanding the difference between the Generalist and the Specialist and integrating the idea of ​​creating your own movement imprint,

It's not an easy thing.

In a world where social media is omnipresent and the race for likes, views, and followers is constant, the world of movement is no exception.

We see posts with metaphysical quotes about the importance of movement, posts with people doing one-handed balances, lizard walks, games with tennis balls or sticks that supposedly help athletic performance...

In short, a lot of noise which unfortunately leads many people, seduced by the external appearance, the aesthetics, to begin this adventure towards more movements but which often results in little progress.

In fact, these movement rooms do not really allow you holistic development as they might claim, but rather a specialization towards movement.

I speak to you from experience, being a former student of the Ido Portal community and having lived with many students of this method.

All the students, myself included, have extensive experience in several disciplines, sometimes at a high level. They are people already accustomed to the rigor of training, repetition, patience, and discipline.

This is why this type of environment can seem very elitist and sometimes even arrogant towards other sports practitioners, relegated to the lower rank of “specialist”.

Yes, a lot of judgment still sometimes unfortunately... (Not everywhere obviously)

This is just my personal experience , and certainly many students/teachers sincerely want to help people achieve greater physical independence .

For my part, I try to move away from this idea of ​​Generalist and allow people to build the foundations of the movement which will then allow them to enjoy the activities they love, for as long as possible,

and thus be able to create their own movement imprint.

To this end, I propose in all my training courses to work on 3 fundamental aspects:

1. Joint mobility to unlock the body, regain range of motion, gain body awareness
2. Physical preparation to develop strength, core strength, and the condition to sustain effort and meet the demands of movement
3. Movement , lastly, once the body is able to move with strength and control, we have fun, explore and gain skill.

As always, everyone adds their little stone to the building of the movement.

My advice is always the same: personalize!

There's no magic formula that works for everyone. We all have different bodies, needs, goals, physical activity history, injuries...

Regaining control over one's body, one's health and one's movements should above all be the result of real introspection , a profound paradigm shift, a desire to become a better version of oneself rather than following a fashion or a trend.

Movement training is an excellent tool for this, when properly understood and carefully applied.

Let's move more, move better, live better.

Nomad Slim
Founder of MOUVERS