What’s the point?

Twice a week you can come to this blog and find a brand new post about whatever is relevant in the health and fitness world. Usually there will be some helpful advice that should get you on the right track to achieving your goals. But what about people who’s goals lie outside health and fitness? Plenty of people know they aren’t in great shape but they aren’t in terrible shape either. Too many people, if you ask me. This does raise an interesting point though. Why should we bother?

I’m not talking about the people who are almost completely inactive and often dangerously overweight as a result. I think it is perfectly obvious to almost everyone why that should be avoided. But what about your Average Joe? They aren’t in serious danger of health related problems and yet they don’t go to the gym.

Well the most simple way to answer would be to say why wouldn’t you want to be in great shape? For the most part people tend to give their best at what they are doing. If you’re at work you are trying to be the best version of yourself there. If you are playing a game then you try to be the best version of yourself during that game. So surely the same should be true of your physical fitness. It’s just another area of our lives that we should look to give our best at.

Then you have the genuine health concerns. You don’t have to weigh over 20 stone and be visibly obese to put yourself at risk. Okay, we might be talking long-term here but focusing on being healthy now will set you up much better in the future. I’m not saying that everyone who works out is guaranteed to live longer of course, but suggesting it has no part to play would be foolish.

And what about just because it feels good? Ask anyone who trains, when their sleeping pattern is right, they are eating properly and regularly exercising they will have never felt better. They have more energy throughout the day and can put so much more enthusiasm into everything that they do. When we say that training can improve EVERY aspect of your life, they aren’t just empty words.

Gym membership is rising. Even so much that we can assume that the number of people actually attending after they join is rising too. And gyms have been around for decades. What we are seeing is a growing awareness of what an actively healthy lifestyle can actually bring.

Like I say, most people who are severely overweight know that they ought to do something about it and to that extent they might not need quite as much encouragement as those who sit somewhere in the middle. Not being aware that you might need to start being a little more active can be equally as dangerous in the long-term.

This doesn’t mean that we all need to go the gym every single day. Obviously that isn’t feasible for some. But that doesn’t mean that we should sit around and discount exercise all together.