The Reluctant Hubby: Body Control, Gravity Be Damned

First down!

There are so many amazing physical feats that athletes perform on a regular basis. You have Olympians twisting and turning and swimming and lifting and running, as the Olympic motto says, “faster, higher, stronger.” You have professional baseball players with hand-eye coordination and a fast-twitch response that allows them to hit 95 mile per hour fastballs out of the park. And then you have wide receivers in football who do one of the most un-natural acts I can think of, and do it well game in and game out.

Try the following next time your outside in an open space. Run as fast as you can for 10 to 20 yards and then stop your momentum on a dime, planting your feet and falling to the ground without using your hands to break your fall. Wait a minute, what?

Or just get rid of the running and try falling straight over, only using your elbows, shoulders, or hips, and twisting your body slightly to avoid smashing your face in. Even that is next to impossible and feels completely against all instinctive hard wiring.

But receivers in football do it all the time whenever they try and catch a pass along the sidelines while keeping both feet in bounds and not letting the ball move around in their hands, let alone holding onto it at all. Sure, they’ve got padding and helmets on, but they’ve still had to train themselves to suppress the body’s natural inclination to protect itself from gravity. I was watching games over the weekend and truly marveling not only at the skill and control these professionals display, but also at how simple they make it seem.

Meanwhile, us normal folks can barely walk up the stairs without falling over and hurting ourselves. What’s your favorite oddball physical feat that you see world-class athletes perform regularly ?

Previously on The Reluctant Hubby: “My Fitness To Do List”

photo credit: John Martinez Pavliga