Glassman’s Hierarchy of Fitness Needs

“Where do I start?” and “What’s most important?” are common questions facing those trying to improve their health and fitness.

A useful starting point is the Theoretical Hierarchy of Development, outlined in Greg Glassman’s seminal article “What is Fitness?” (2002) to understand the priorities and dependencies when considering our approach to improving health and fitness:

"Theoretical Hierarchy of Development" from CrossFit.com

Understanding the Layers

The Foundation is Nutrition.:

This is a truism so self-evident that it is constantly overlooked. It’s summarised best in the classic aphorism: “You can’t outwork a bad diet.”

Far too many of us have tried to do just that though, focussing on the easy win of doing an hour of exercise rather than addressing the more beneficial task of creating and maintaining healthy eating habits for the other 23 hours each day. The fitness and weight loss industries have also done a number on us, fragmenting, mystifying and outright misrepresenting our basic nutritional needs for decades.

So let’s make it simple. Nutrition boils down into two parts:

• How much we eat (quantity) directly impacts how much we weigh.

• The quality of the food we eat directly impacts our capacity for performance, both in fitness and life in general.

Whether our goal be improving our health or sports performance, with poor nutrition habits (be it eating too much, or poor food quality) we are trying to drive with the hand-break on.

Good nutrition habits on the other hand are like having every traffic light on your route go green as you approach them.

Note: Sleep should almost certainly be included at this foundational level as well. It certainly was in Abraham Maslow’s original “Hierarchy of Needs”.

The Second Layer is Metabolic Conditioning:

A good definition of this is that it is our ability to access and employ energy for physical activity.

An obvious example is our ability to perform cardiovascular exercise such as going for a brisk walk, bike ride or jog. But it also needs to be considered in the context of short (less than 2 minutes), medium (up to 45 minutes) and long (45+ mins) periods of time.

Metabolic conditioning is like your internal battery, you can only do as much as the charge available, but good training helps increase the charge duration and the battery life in general!

The Third Layer is “Gymnastics”

This is a catch-all term for the ability to move our own bodies with control.

If we cannot move our own bodies with control, then we are on a slippery slope to losing our physical independence.

It could be argued that moving our own body may be even harder than moving external objects, because our bodies are usually much heavier than any objects we need to move (unless we are an elite athlete), but this hierarchy is about need rather than ease of training.

Note: Flexibility/mobility falls into this category.

The Fourth Layer is “Weightlifting and Throwing”

Again, this is referring to the larger skill-set of the ability to move objects external to our own bodies.

It comes fourth because our ability to move objects is dependent on our ability to safely and effectively move our own bodies to begin with (ie: “Gymnastics”).

We all need to be able to move external objects throughout our lives, whether it’s lifting furniture to move house, maneuvering a suitcase when we take a holiday, picking up a child or grandchild, or even as simple as being able to lift a full pan off the hob when making dinner.

The Fifth Layer is Playing Sports.

Sports usually make demands of conditioning, body movement and the control of external objects all at once, so they are the application of all three of the previous layers.

It is therefore ironic that the majority of people take up a sport for health and fitness, without having developed any of the previous layers of the hierarchy. The result is usually under-performance and/or injury(s).

As a personal trainer, I am frequently astonished by the lack of basic movement skills amongst casual (and sometimes highly competitive) players – indicating that they have neglected to some degree one or more of the previous layers of this hierarchy of development.

Using the Hierarchy

If you were looking to apply this hierarchy principle to prioritise your own health and fitness improvements, or if you are struggling with sports performance, then you can use this hierarchy to question your level of ability in each area, as well as provide a guideline for prioritising your efforts.

Here’s an example of how it might work for someone just getting started wanting to simply improve their health and wellbeing:

1. Nutrition Part A: Manage food intake so that it supports and does not exceed your daily needs.

2. Nutrition Part B: Aim to reduce the quantity of low-quality foods you consume, and increase the amount of quality food you consume.

3. Do some form of exercise every day that increases your heart rate. Each week try to include workouts that are high intensity for short periods, medium intensity for moderate periods, and low intensity for longer periods. A good ratio for this is 1:2:3 (which also gives you a rest day each week!).

4. Learn to move your body well. Use bodyweight exercises to train it for fitness, work on your mobility. Practice skills for coordination and balance.

5. Learn to move external objects. Barbell, dumbbells, kettlebells, weight machines, medicine balls and more.

6. Find a sport you enjoy to apply the above skills for fun, exercise and socialising.

If you took a month to learn about and begin practicing each of these, you’d barely be scratching the surface, but it would avoid the common trap of becoming quickly overwhelmed by trying to do too much, too quickly, too soon.

If you need help, consider hiring a coach/trainer 😉