Sunday, August 26, 2012

Don't Live to Train

I'm a work in progress. The me of yesteryear lived to train. All I could focus on was my workout session. My days and thoughts actually revolved around how I was going to train. I truly lived to train. I was simply missing the forest because I was focused on a really big tree right in front of my face. I was missing the point. I'm guessing there are other people out there who do the same thing with their training. If so, this post is for you. 

Training should simply be used to enhance our lives; whether is is strength training, skill training, endurance training, or whatever kind of training. If our life is a particular sport that we play and our livelihood depends on that sport, then training obviously should be used to enhance our livelihood in that respect as well. Training should be used to make us better so we can enjoy our lives more fully. Training should not be our lives, however. There is so much more to life than how many snatches we can perform, or how many times we can bench press 315 pounds. In the long run, these things do not matter. What matters are things like: How did you spend your day? , Did you make someone else's day better? , Where you able to climb those stairs pain free today? , Did you hug your children today - twice, for good measure? Our training should, if anything, enhance our ability to make our days and the days of those around us better. 

Don't get me wrong, it is okay to enjoy and look forward to our training sessions. They can be the some of the best self therapy sessions we can engage in. However, they should not "make or break" us. We are more than what we do to get stronger. I am not a kettlebeller, or a crawler, or a lifter. I am a husband, a dad, a son, a neighbor. YOU are those things too. 

Again, my world used to revolve around my training. I would go to bed excitedly anticipating the next day's session. The quality of my day was actually determined by the quality of my training session. I was SO shallow. I could only see that tree (my training session) and I never saw the forest (the world around me). 

Thankfully, I am wiser today than I was yesterday. Not that I am wise, mind you. I'm still learning and growing. However, today, I know that there is more to life than training. If anything, training is, or should be, a tool that we use to make our lives better. It is a great tool. I know that my life is truly better because of the way that I train. I thank God for Becoming Bulletproof almost every single day. Sometimes, multiple times in a day. I truly believe I can conquer any physical activity I set out to accomplish. There is no mountain I cannot climb. However, and more importantly, my life is better because I see the forest around me - the people, the lives, the world. I want to make all of that better now, not just make me better. 

If you're still with me, I'm sorry for the random post. Just remember, training should enhance your life, not be your life. There is so much more to our lives than the 30 to 90 minutes we spend each day training. 

Thanks so much for reading!

TA

Today's training: 

A spontaneous notion to perform 100 yard sprints - up hill! x 8 sprints. Felt great!

What an awesome way to train "the X"! 

4 comments:

Aleks's Courage Corner said...

I can definitely relate. When I first got into "physical culture" it was in the form of martial arts. Then a friend of mine introduced me to kettlebells and I was bitten by the iron bug. Slowly I stopped doing martial arts as kettlebells and bodyweight exercises filled my time. I've started to realize the error of this and have started doing more crawling, tumbling, rolling (as per your book) and am starting to doing martial arts again. For a reformed geek (well, not FULLY reformed, lol) like me who never moved around much until my late teens, what helped most was first finding something I loved, and then doing it! After that, it's all about finding more and more things that you love and then just doing those as well so you're not "stuck" doing just one thing.

Thanks for the random post!

Unknown said...

Aleks! Thanks so much for sharing. Great point about not getting stuck. That can be easy to do. Life is a lot more fun when we learn to get unstuck!

Unknown said...

Hey Tim,

I am interested in building by reflexive strength as you have, and have been doing my resets for a few months.

I have also been looking at your different daily workouts that you have posted on this blog, and think they look like great fun. I plan to train like this over the summer. I just have a question: did you (or do you) use any sort of programming, or did you just do what you felt like on a given day? I would really appreciate a few pointers.

Best regards

Jonas, Sweden

Unknown said...

Jonas,

Thanks for writing. I think you will enjoy playing with some of these workouts. They can be very fun.

I don't really "program" my training. I am habitual though. For example, Mondays might be my "work capacity" days where I will take a few exercises and try to perform them for 10 minutes each. Wednesdays might be my crawling days, etc...

And yes, some days, if not most days, I just do what I feel like. Today for instance, I didn't really know what I was going to do until I started doing it. I crawled for 20 minutes and marched for 10 minutes. Then I played with a sandbag for 10 minutes.

I hope this helps a little. I am not too scientific. :)