Athleticism vs. Fitness

We've put a lot of information at Personal Defense Network about fitness for personal defense. In fact, I think we were really one of the first major organizations inside of the Personal Offense Community to stress the importance of fitness and to start helping people integrate fitness ideas and concepts into their personal defense training. That said one thing that we haven't necessarily defined very well is the difference between fitness and athleticism. In my classes, I tell people quite often that fighting is an athletic endeavor. And that I want them to move athletically while they're on the range.

Sometimes I think that that might demoralize some people on the range who don't think that they're actually fit. They don't feel like they are fit people. I also know that if we don't define our terms very well we might actually scare off some people who would otherwise benefit greatly from training and being inclined to come to it, if they didn't think that they had to be in great physical shape. So let me be very clear. There is a huge difference between athleticism and fitness.

I want you to think of your fitness as your raw materials. Your fitness is your strength, your coordination, your power, your speed, your dexterity. The idea that you could be stronger or that you could be faster, maybe that you could be thinner, it's all true. That's your fitness. And whatever tools you bring to a class, that's what you've got.

We can't change that in a one day or two day pistol class. You're not gonna change that in a one day, unarmed defense seminar or a two day Women's Assault Prevention Weekend. What we can do is help you to be as athletic as possible using your raw tools. Athleticism is how you use your fitness. So when I say I want someone to be athletic or when I remind someone that fighting is an athletic endeavor, I don't mean that you need to be more fit necessarily.

What I mean is that you need to use your level of strength, your level of speed, your level of power, your level of coordination, to the best of your ability. I don't expect someone who is 65 years old and had a shoulder and a knee and a hip replaced or rebuilt over the last 10 years, to perform in exactly the same way or certainly at the same levels as a college athlete that comes to one of my classes or an active SWAT officer who's been training and working out and getting ready to carry an extra 40 or 50 or 60 pounds of gear on his next mission. Those two guys are gonna work very different in the way that they move on a range. But they can both be moving athletically. Moving athletically simply means that you're putting energy and effort into moving.

You're not being lazy. You're not being very static. You're not being somewhat complacent in your movement. And most importantly, if you find yourself to be on that lower end of fitness, you're not using that as an excuse to train unrealistically. You can still be athletic given the limits and the parameters of your body, your power and your strength.

Being fit is important. But using your fitness to be athletic is much more important.