In a normal year, July 4th always seems to arrive too quickly, and then the rest of the summer is suddenly over. I’m not sure I’ll feel that way about this summer in a few months…but who knows? 2020 feels a bit (okay, more than a bit) surreal, and, as we move forward, we are still adapting to the many changes occurring around us.
Regardless of our ability to impact these changes, we each have the opportunity to engage in activities that improve our health and reduce our stress.
For me, this means that exercise is a non-negotiable item; it is part of my lifestyle and identity.
I appreciate a well-planned strength and sprint circuit that gets my heart rate up and pushes me to run just a touch faster than I thought I could. I might be unable to talk during the sprints — and I will definitely need to catch my breath and rehydrate — but I feel phenomenal once I’m done with this type of workout!
Did you read the paragraph above and think, “That sounds awful!”? If so, I get it. It’s clear that my own opinion about what is worth doing and what is not worth doing has changed significantly as I’ve improved my level of fitness. (The above workout would not have been appealing to me at all about ten years ago.)
Your exercise routine doesn’t have to look anything like my strength and sprint days…unless that sounds like fun to you. Also, though I think strength training and high intensity interval training are both activities that are worth doing (alert: biased fitness advocate here!), my opinion isn’t necessarily going to change anyone else’s mind.
Though it’s generally accepted that consistent resistance training in conjunction with regular cardiovascular activity will provide numerous health benefits, the vast majority of people do not exercise regularly.
Strength training, in particular, seems to be one of those activities that generally healthy people, even those who consistently exercise, seem to struggle with doing. (This is anecdotal evidence, of course, as people who aren’t struggling with this particular problem are unlikely to mention it to me.)
Can you relate?
If you are open to strength training, is it something you feel you should do, something you want to do, or something you get to do? How you frame an activity impacts how you feel about the activity, and that, in turn, affects how likely it is that you will actually do the activity.
By itself, knowing that strength training is beneficial is almost irrelevant, as that knowledge doesn’t create the benefits. It’s what you do with your knowledge that makes a difference.
Learning to apply your knowledge, whether that information is related to fitness or not, is where your true power resides.
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