In the wake of Thanksgiving, and most everyone stuffing themselves until they regret even the thought of food, I believe this post is timely. Most of us are in some way trying to improve physically; it’s a common topic in the Sphere, and for good reason. It is no secret that improving your body reaps many synergistic benefits. I’m going to advise a step further though: take your dedication to fitness beyond just “working out”.
The phrase: “there is a difference between working out and training” is often repeated in the online lifting community. It’s way of saying that when you become dedicated it becomes something more than a hobby. Something more than an activity you occasionally participate in when the mood strikes. The perpetually overweight “workout” for three weeks after New Years and a week and a half just before summer. Athletes train. It becomes a mindset that invades your entire life.
This isn’t just the realm of the elite. Why would it be? Why should only a small subset of the population train to be their very best? Every man owes it to himself to discover what he is physically capable of. This isn’t something that is achieved when you work out three times a week and consider yourself done. It’s everyday; even your days with no actual training are recovery days, not days off. From how you sleep to how you eat, walk, breathe, think, everything changes.
It is isn’t hard to see how this bleeds over into improving your entire life. Because that’s what your daily agenda becomes: improvement. Athletes are always fighting to be just that much better, faster and stronger. These aren’t sacrifices, they’re investments. It’s not even a gamble as the risks are basically nonexistent and the rewards are tremendous.
Just lifting weights all the time can make you stiff and hurt you flexibility. Weight training should be done concurrently with some activity, be it sports or otherwise. I personally don’t lift weights. I used to years ago, but I wound up unable to touch my own shoulder and quit. i train with body weight only. Running, squats, push-up, crunches, and calf lifts. And though many may call this gay, I did gymnastics growing up. I didn’t take any classes, just learned on a trampoline and moved to the ground. That shit builds muscles you don’t even know you have, while keeping you flexible, agile, and balanced. Just my .02. I’m about to start doing my flips, hand-stands, etc again.
The strength training commununity definitely has a more holistic approach now than just lifting and calling it good. The top lifters in the world are true athletes and train accordingly with a big focus on conditioning, flexibility, nutrition, etc.
You’re still strength training, building your conditioning, and keeping your body healthy in more ways than just cardio capacity. That’s what athletes do.
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I found this posted on a bodybuilding forum last year.. Unfortunately I didn’t save the URL, but I did copy the text and saved it to my folder of inspired writings, it resonates quite well with what you wrote in this post. Attitude!
That’s great stuff, and embodies exactly what I mean by “be an athlete”. It’s true of other things as well. If a person wants to be successful, then the first thing they need is to adopt a successful mindset; to act as if. Sure, successful people may have nicer posessions (or they may not), but their mindset has nothing to do with those posessions. In the same way that naturally an athlete has a better body than your average joe, but it’s periphery.