What is FD/T?

While we all have an aesthetic goal, fitness goes far beyond looking like the man or woman that you saw in the grocery store check-out line on the cover of the magazine.  We all have our bodies for a purpose.  For some of us it is to hustle from the car to the daycare or school with three kids, the diapers for the baby, the extra clothes for one, and the project for another.  For some of us it is to effectively navigate several airports and hoist a carry-on bag for a multi-site European business trip.  And for many of us, it is just to enjoy the pleasures of life; like kayaking the Grand Canyon, improving your golf score, or simply waking up without pain.  This is true fitness; the essence of fitness.

In order to reach these lofty, but very attainable, goals of improved function, we can all use a little FD/T.  FD/T means more work in less time.  It means increasing your power output.  It is where strength, speed, endurance, flexibility, stability, coordination, and mental focus all meet.  It is the power that we need to get out of that chair, to chase that child before he/she gets to the street, or to climb that hill in the next 5K race.

The F in FD/T stands for force.  Most of us are familiar with this.  Many exercise programs include some weight training, whose main goal is to increase the amount of force that a muscle (or group of muscles) can produce.  However, by definition a force has a magnitude and a direction.  This is where stability and coordination come into play.  Force is useless if it is not produced in the right direction at the right time.  Many people can throw a bunch of weight on a leg press and push it up, but a lot of those same people cannot climb a steep, rocky trail very efficiently.

The D in FD/T stands for distance.  There are two ways to apply this to fitness.  Of course there is distance like the miles that the treadmill says you covered (although you never really went anywhere).  And then there is distance as in range of motion at a joint.  We equate range of motion with flexibility.  If you can produce force effectively when your muscles are in a stretched position, it goes a long way towards preventing injuries.  Imagine walking down the stairs and slipping on a step.  All of a sudden a lot of muscles are in a stretched position, and if you can’t produce the right force, in the right direction, at the right time, then you won’t be getting on the treadmill tomorrow.

And the T in FD/T stands for time.  As in the previous example of slipping on the stairs, if you can produce the force over the distance that you need to, but you can’t do it fast enough, then you  might be faced with a broken hip.  T is a quality of fitness that many people neglect.  We train slow and controlled in the gym, but once we leave the gym, life is not slow and controlled.  This is true if you play tennis on the weekends, or if you play with your grandchildren on the floor.  One of the hallmarks of age is that it takes more time to get up from the floor.  The force (your bodyweight) is relatively the same.  The distance that you must travel is the same (unless you have shrunk).  But T is much greater when your older.  This does not have to be so.

So free your mind, and train your body the way that it was meant to function.  Focusing on FD/T you can’t go wrong.  Move better.  Feel better.  Look better.  Live Better.