I know my teenage boy has been featuring heavily in my emails lately, but this was too good not to share.
A story for another day, but I can’t create mental images in my mind (aphantasia) and don’t have an inner monologue. I was asking my eldest a heap of questions in an attempt to work out if he’s the same as his mama (turns out, he has 1 out of 2).
We were talking about how we’re all wired differently when he said:
“If everyone’s special in their own way, doesn’t that technically mean nobody is special?”
Then he went straight back to what he was doing, like he hadn’t just casually dismantled 15 years of primary school pep talks.
But it got me thinking about a word I hear almost every single day in clinic.
Normal.
“Is this normal?”
“Am I stiffer than most people?”
“What should I be able to lift?”
“Is my balance bad for my age?”
And my personal favourite, usually said half joking, half not:
“Am I the worst you’ve seen?”
Here’s the thing. Clinically, normal does have some use. Normative ranges help me notice when something might be worth a closer look.
But most people aren’t really asking a clinical question. They’re asking something closer to, where do I sit compared with everyone else? Am I good? Am I bad? Am I behind?
And truthfully, none of us are normal. And none of us really want to be.
There is enormous variation between humans. Different bodies, injury histories, genetics, training histories, hormones, confidence, opportunities, priorities. A population average can tell you something about a population. It cannot tell you what your body is capable of becoming.
So instead of measuring yourself against everyone else, here’s what I’d rather you measure against.
Yourself, six months ago.
→ Could you get off the floor without using your hands, and can you now?
→ Did you start with 3kg dumbbells, and are you using 6kg now?
→ Could you balance on one leg to put your shoes on, and can you now?
→ Did you used to avoid lifting something because you didn’t trust your back, and you don’t think twice about it anymore?
That is useful data. And for measuring your progress, often far more useful than knowing where you sit in a normal range.
So this week, forget normal for a minute.
What can you do now that your past self couldn’t, or couldn’t do as easily?