We are all Athletes!

When I came across this article in Competitor magazine, I was amazed at how clearly it summed up the ideas I was trying to get across in my fitness training philosophy. Everyone is an athlete whether we know it or not and it would really benefit us to train in that manner. Our bodies were designed to move. Just 100 years ago, we would have no choice but to be active. If we wanted to survive, everyday had to be spent finding food and working on our shelter and land. As technology advanced, the less we had to do to survive. Now we spend a lot more time sitting. We spend a lot of time being inactive whether it's sitting at our desk in front of the computer or at home in front of the TV. My goal is to help people make physical activity one of their top priorities in life. There are so many benefits to obtain from challenging ourselves physically. It helps strengthen us not just physically, but also mentally and spiritually. Here is an excerpt from that article that really described the joy of being an athlete, no matter what level....

For most of my life, I was a musician. By the end of my career, I was a pretty good musician. Not only was I a musician, all of my friends were musicians. I hardly knew anyone who wasn't a musician.

When I'd gather with friends, we'd do what musicians tend to do--eat, drink and listen to music. We encountered the world as musicians. We didn't hear the world by choice; it was just the way we perceived it.

Later I was an academic, my friends were academics and I lived in a world of academics. When I'd gather with those friends, we'd do what academics do--eat, drink and complain about students and the administrators. We encountered the world with our minds. We thought about things a lot but didn't do much else.

When I became an athlete though--even the awful, terrible, embarrassing athlete that I was--I suddenly found myself encountering the world as an athlete. I started to look forward to exerting myself. I started to like the feeling I got from the honest effort of trying to do just a little more than I thought I was capable of doing.

As an athlete, I came to grasp the need to move my body. I understood that sitting behind a desk all day was not what my body was designed to do. Once I was an athlete, I learned to enjoy the simple movement of my body. I smiled when I ran, cycled or swam. I could skip and jump again and walk as far as I wanted without getting tired. I had been released from a life of sedentary confinement.

As the years went on, I discovered that despite my best efforts and intentions I had almost no athletic gifts but still enjoyed being an athlete. My enthusiasm and joy were a mystery to everyone around me. Surely I couldn't be satisfied. Surely I would become discouraged by my abject lack of talent. Surely I would quit.

Nope, I wouldn't. And nope, I didn't. I know for a fact that being an athlete, any kind of athlete, is a way of life that gives more back to you than you invest. When I run, walk or cycle--or do any of the hundreds of other activities I have tried--I get the gift of knowing myself. I get the gift of discovering the courage, the tenacity and the relentless inner strength that I possess.

It isn't what you do that makes you an athlete. It isn't how fast or how far you go or how many personal bests you have. It's waking up every day knowing that you will take on whatever the world has for you that day as an athlete. You will embrace the challenges--physical, emotional and spiritual--because you know that as an athlete it's the challenges that makes you stronger.

Excerpt from:
Bingham, John. "An Accidental Athlete." Competitor Magazine (July 2010):pg.40