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2026-09-05

All physical skills / hobbies follow the same human anatomical principles

Disclaimer

• personal
• target audience - friends / potential friends
• I am not an expert at most of these hobbies/skills and I have not thoroughly fact-checked the info. If someone else is reading this, take everything with grain of salt.
• I am sure some people (who are actually good at these skills) find all this obvious. I didn't find it obvious until recently, and my guess is I am not alone in this.

Common advice

• Back straight. Bend knees if required to reach correct height.
  • Drums - Adjust stool height and drums heights to ensure this
  • Strength training - Standard advice across various exercises
  • Massage - Standard advice, especially because you want your body weight to transfer to the client
  • Salsa - Man should not bend towards the woman
  • Swimming - Honestly water makes the back straight by default. If you are deliberately stiffening your back, you might make it harder to float at all.
  • Driving - Hard seat ensures back straight by default.
  • Basketball - Bending knees is standard advice for many types of shots.
• Elbow locked at 90 degree. Don't keep lifted arms if stuck in a position for extended time.
  • Drums - Elbows do roughly lock at 90 degrees. Adjust snare height if your left arm is being raised or stretched.
  • Strength training - I can't remember any exercise off the top of my head that locks elbows at 90. Either you flex the arms completely or the arms are not important. I guess plank locks elbows at 90.
  • Massage - Some moves do require making contact with client via lower arm, and locking elbow at roughly 90.
  • Salsa - Woman's elbows are supposed to lock at 90 before turns.
  • Swimming - Not relevant I think. Most swimming is done with straight arms and flat elbows.
  • Driving - I guess you should adjust your seat so that atleast upper arm is parallel to your back.
  • Basketball - Elbow locks at roughly 90 for some of the standard shots. One elbow locks completely. The other elbow flattens out during the shot to deliver power. Dribbling too is typically done with a locked elbow.
• If elbow locked at an angle, movement should come from wrists (as opposed to fingers or lower arms).
  • Drums - Standard advice in drums, play from wrists
  • Strength training - Not relevant, most exercises lock the wrists
  • Massage - Wrists do tend to move along the curvature of the client's body, while other parts of your arm remain locked
  • Salsa - Wrists are used to signal turns, switch holds and so on
  • Swimming - idk swimming well enough to comment on what the correct form for wrists is, for swimming. But I think there is a correct form, and wrist movements do play a role.
  • Driving - Maybe a counterexample? Wheel movements are done using lower arm not wrists even though anatomically speaking this should hurt more here. AFAIK this is true of both regular cars and F1 cars. F1 car steering wheels require smaller wheel turns AFAIK so you don't lift the arms as much. (If correct, I am claiming regular car steering wheels are suboptimally designed !!!)
  • Basketball - Atleast some of the precision of shots comes from wrists, yes. However arm is also used to control how much power to deliver to the shot. Dribbling is again primarily done using wrists keeping the elbow locked at a specific height.
• If delivering maximum power, deliver it from upper arm / shoulders only (as opposed to fingers, wrists, lower arms). Ensure elbows are flat.
  • Drums - Idk, I don't think you are ever supposed to deliver so much power to the drums, that elbows flat is required for good form. Elbows always stay bent when playing drums.
  • Strength training - I guess powerlifting counts here? Idk much about powerlifting form. But yeah typically you start with bent elbows and then flatten them to deliver maximum power.
  • Massage - Standard advice when delivering maximum power to client
  • Salsa - Same as drums, you don't ever deliver this much power during salsa
  • Swimming - Standard front stroke and back stroke are both done with flat elbows.
  • Driving - By default you don't deliver this much power via hands. Also idk, maybe driving is a genuinely counterexample. Fast turns are again done via lower arms.
  • Basketball - Same as with powerlifting, you deliver maximum force when your elbow goes from bent to flat. One elbow is locked during the shot while other delivers the power. Long-range shots like 3-pointer or half court shots are basically thrown with outstretched arms for maximum power.
• Precise leg movements should come from the ankles only (as opposed to lifting/placing feet off the ground precisely, or using knees). Ankles are the equivalent for wrists, whenever precision without tiring out is required.
  • Drums - Self-explanatory, both pedals are driven by ankles
  • Strength training - Don't know enough about foot exercises to comment
  • Massage - Don't know enough about massages where force is delivered using feet as the contact point (as opposed to palms or upper arm)
  • Salsa - Foot placement does matter, this is possibly a counterexample. Although again, the precision and momentum of turns comes mostly from ankles again AFAIK (not sure).
  • Swimming - Ankle movements play important role in swimming.
  • Driving - Self-explanatory. Regular cars use three pedals driven by two feet. F1 cars use only two pedals since that is more efficient.
  • Basketball - I don't know enough about basketball to comment on ankle movements.
• Corollary - Once you have practised for a year and reached intermediate level, then all the remaining expert-level skills require either a) training muscle memory of wrists and ankles for specific techniques, or b) brute force repetitive training to deliver more power (cardio, strength, endurance)
  • Drums - This is the only skill I am close to an expert at, and I can attest this is more-or-less true. Playing at high bpm, playing triplets or irregular time signatures, playing riffs etc, all of this basically boils down to precise wrist movements and more limb independence. All 4 of your limbs should be capable of learning 4 different patterns in muscle memory and autoplaying them.
  • Strength training - AFAIK there is no such thing as an expert at strength training. Schwarzenegger does the same exercises as you and me. He has just done the same thing brute force a lot more than most people (and maybe he has good genes or whatever).
  • Massage - I don't know what expert level in massage in, or if it even exists. There is no such a thing as world's best massage therapist AFAIK, whereas you can conceive of world's best drummer or powerlifter or marathoner or dancer or driver or swimmer or so on.
  • Salsa - Don't know enough about salsa to comment but my naive guess is that ankle movements are an important part of becoming an expert. Possibly limb independence is important, same as with drums.
  • Swimming - Don't know enough about swimming to comment but my naive guess again is that wrist and ankle movements are an important part of becoming an expert. I'm more unsure here though. I guess cardio is an important part for competitive swimming, just how much raw power your heart and lungs can deliver in a short span of time. And improving cardio requires the same sort of boring repetitive training as say, powerlifting does, there is no special technique to improving cardio AFAIK.
  • Driving - TIL F1 cars having a number of buttons to change relative torque delivery of the brake, accelerator, even their clutch is just buttons. Even the gear is controlled via buttons on the wheel. As in, all this is controlled by wrists (because this is more efficient than the controls on a regular car).
  • Basketball - Coordinationg between dribbling speed and direction (mostly controlled by wrists) and body movement (mostly controlled by ankles) is obviously important. Althogh again, don't know enough about basketball to offer a strong comment.

Side Note

• I wonder how much of this also applies to sex lmao. By default, I will assume all of it does.

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