How a jazz player approaches his craft stands in stark contrast to that of a classically trained musician. Whereas classic music is about perfectly playing the right notes, jazz is about improvisation. A talented jazz musician can, and probably has to, adjust his playing on the fly each night.
To react to the other musicians he’s playing with or to change the vibe of the audience. Adding notes to a solo or pulling back while another player takes the spotlight.
In classic concerts, you get to enjoy the talented playing just the same. But when you buy a ticket to a classical concert, you know you’ll be getting the exact thing it says on the tin.
With a jazz gig, though, there’s always a certain element of improvisation to it. You never know exactly what you’re going the get tonight.
Approach strength training like a jazz musician.
Injuries often happen when we’re stuck on doing what we’ve always done. I used to love training with barbells and (relatively) super heavy weights. And I kept getting myself injured. After a while, longer than I’d like to admit, I realised I had tied a part of my self and who I was to the way I trained.
I had to two options. a) keep going back to the heavy weights and keep feeling like shit, or b) let go of the part of me that’s tied to the barbell training. And find a different way to get to my goals.
Now, all that sounds much more elegant in writing than what it was when I was going through it years ago. But I guess that’s the benefit of hindsight. Besides, writing this blog is about as elegant as I ever get. So please don’t take that away from me.
When you weaponise the jazz mindset for your own fitness, you let go of being married to a one way of training.
You become more adaptable. You move the focus away from the method. And towards the results. Instead of having a one method to get to your goals, you can use whatever training style or exercise selection feels good for your body.
With the jazz mindset, you can change your training because of an injury or let go of an exercise because your body no longer feels good doing it.
You can adjust your training sessions based on your time or equipment availability. Instead of doing nothing because you can’t train the way you’ve always trained.
Jazz mindset means dropping the dogma. If the latest science no longer supports the way you’re doing things, you’ll be open to moving on to something else. Instead of trying to grind a gear that ain’t moving.
Essentially, you become an agnostic of fitness.
– J