How often do you think about what makes you truly happy?
I take about 1 hour a week to recall what is going well in my life… as an athlete, as a husband/father, as a business owner, as a coach (Bright Spots Friday is my favorite day of the week!). Acknowledging progress is about becoming happy and realizing how capable I am. I find myself every night thinking about either how happy am I or what changes I’d like to make to improve my happiness.
My happiness generally comes from my capability to do most physical tasks… with ease, pain free and without having to wonder aka feeling capable. Yet even more happiness comes from a conscious decision to challenge my physical and mental capabilities. It’s probably pretty easy to connect the dots why I enjoy training so much…
You may not enjoy challenges like I do but I’ve never met a person who didn’t want to feel capable or confident. Not only do I want you to feel capable I want you to BE capable. When and where is the time to find your capabilities? In the gym… you need to test the limits to find the limits.
You have to…
You have to squat because it tells you about the function of your lower body. Long workouts where you run out of breathe are important so you know if you have cardiovascular endurance. You need to lift heavy weights. You have to practice coordinated skills. Why? Because you need to do literally all of those things in your daily life.
If you improve your squat it turns into better function of the hips, knees and ankles. What does that function mean to you? Now you can get down on your hands and knees and do some of the handy stuff you used to do. Does that mean you can chase your toddler around without your knee hurting? I hope so. You won’t need someone to help you off of the ground if you fall down, if you’re capable. Being capable might mean you can lift more 2×4’s than anyone else on the job. You tell me what it is to you, but you need the function of all of your body parts… not just your hips, knees and ankles.
Who is in the nursing home?
Think about literally every person who is in a nursing home right now. Why are they there? Loss of physical capability. It’s very hard to become happy if your aren’t capable. We pair the two… with well rounded training programs. Good programs don’t just maintain capacity but build it no matter your age. Every time you step in the gym for a well rounded training program you put yourself another step further from being in the nursing home yourself.
At some point, at some age your ability to build capacity slows down don’t wait too long to get started, you’re the one who will pay the price for it. Just remember you need shoulder range of motion to wipe, and you need hip strength and range to squat down to and stand up from the toilet. Wiping your butt and squatting to the toilet by themselves do not train your improvement, challenging the boundaries of your range of motion and strength does. You should squat with weight, you should squat low, you should squat fast… at the very minimum by contrast your daily functions will feel easier.
Being capable makes me happy… helping other become more capable is my life’s purpose!
Book a No Sweat Intro to start restoring your capabilities today!
