Nearly a year ago, for her birthday and at her request, I took my wife to see The Eagles.
Now, I grew up on classic rock radio so I’ve heard the same forty Eagles songs about 40,000 times but even if you are a fan of current acts like Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Durk (these are real names, I didn’t make them up) the Eagles are so sewn into the culture of American music the past 50 years that you are probably aware of them.
Hell, I think they still have one of the top 5 selling albums of all time.
Wait, I have the internet! I can fact check this. Hold on, I’ll be right back.
OK, so I’m right. Depending on which list you look at, The Eagles “Hotel California” is either the second or fifth best selling album of all time and their collection of greatest hits is the best selling album in the history of that genre.
With all this said, it should come as no surprise that The Eagles are amazing live. Yet, somehow, I was surprised.
Their recorded work is absolute perfection. Every harmony. Every guitar solo. Every song structure. They are master classes in how to write easy-listening, country infused rock songs.
I figured there is no way you can pull off that same level of craft live but they absolutely did. The way their voices blended together, the musicianship, the stagecraft - it all led to three hours of perfectly executed songs of which my wife and I knew every word.
The Eagles are a larger band and they had seven musicians on stage including original members Don Henley and Tim Schmit as well as new members such as country music legend Vince Gill and late member Glenn Frey’s son Deacon and long time member Joe Walsh.
As I mentioned, all of these guys as well as the additional session musicians they had to round out the band, are metronome precise, note-for-note and pitch-perfect on every song.
With the exception of absolute crowd favorite Joe Walsh. Walsh is a more off-the-cuff blues-inspired player with an unusual voice and outsized personality. His performances had a much looser and more improvisational feel and - like I said - the crowd absolutely ate it up.
And while I would like nothing more than to take the next three paragraphs to discuss how transcendent Vince Gill’s vocals and playing were live, you are probably here to learn about fitness and not music theory and I’ve probably pushed your patience far enough already.
When most people think about their training they tend to obsess over the numbers. Did they squat more weight or the same weight for more reps than last time. Is their mile pace improving week over week?
And this is for good reason. One of the scientific pillars of strength training is progressive overload which states that training must progress (ie. get more challenging) over time to remain effective.
Things such as more weight on the bar or more reps in a set or shorter rest periods or longer distances are the standards of progressive overload. And that is for good reason, they work and they are easy to see.
But as you develop in your training there is an often overlooked aspect of progress that is nearly, or perhaps even more, important than those factors I just listed.
And that is movement quality.
Your physique (whether while moving or even while static) will be a direct outcome of not only how much you lift or how fast you go but of how you move.
Rugged lifters tend to look, well, rugged. While beautiful lifters tend to have that movement translate into their bodies.
This really struck me while watching the track portion of the Olympics this year. During the introductions of each of the athletes you couldn’t help but notice how they all looked so regal, so statuesque, so incredible. It’s no coincidence that these same athletes move more efficiently and effectively than anyone else in the world.
And this even goes for sports where that level of leanness isn’t advantageous for performance. Watching heavyweight weightlifters or hammer throwers or judokas perform their activities is like seeing poetry in motion and is just as stunning. It’s not always about body composition.
But more often than not, the athletes that move beautifully are the ones that end up on the podium.
Really paying attention to your technique - even when it is at the sacrifice of load or repetition - is a great way to improve mobility, flexibility, posture and appearance. Not to mention it is a great way to mitigate the risk of injury.
Bodybuilders - whose entire sport relies on symmetry, muscularity and pageantry - are perhaps the greatest examples of focusing on how they are executing their exercises rather than how much they have on the bar.
“But Dan, in that very overwrought and seemingly irrelevant introduction, you said that Joe Walsh, who was the standout non-perfect player, was the favorite. So why should we strive to be like the other members of the band when it comes to our training???”
This is a great question and I applaud you for connecting the dots here so I didn’t have to do it for you. Bravo.
Walsh is the favorite because he is fun and unpredictable. And that is also what we root for in the gym. We all love seeing people put weights on the bar they’ve never attempted before and lift them. Or end their life trying to get a PR on a 2K row.
It’s fun. It’s exciting. And, sometimes, it’s necessary.
And in those instances things are certainly not going to - nor should they - look perfect.
But if Joe Walsh didn’t have the contrast of the rest of the band, his imperfection would be a much bigger problem. He needs the backbone of exacting musicianship to make his brand of flair work. It’s the context. If the entire band was out of sync the arena wouldn’t be sold out.
And so it goes for your training. There are times when the wheels will come off and you will push beyond your technique in order to make a performance happen. And that is fine.
But that needs to be earned with training that is rock solid and striving towards precise movement at least 95% of the time. And the truth is you, me and most people don’t get that ratio correct. We are a bit too captivated by what is on the bar rather than how well we’re moving it.
Last insight. For all I said about Joe Walsh, the truth is the guy is an incredibly experienced virtuoso on the guitar. He knows exactly the right notes to play at the right time even if he doesn’t always choose to do so. And this is what allows him to break the rules without getting himself in trouble.
Through years of meticulous practice he has earned the right to just get up on stage and let it rip.
He’s got the support system and the decades of practice in his fingers to effectively break the rules.
We should all be this patient.