Talk to 20 different people and you will probably get 20 different definitions of the word fitness. If you were to consult the dictionary, it would say “the quality of being suitable to fulfill a particular role or task”. I really like this definition, and I’ll come back to why in a minute.
When you generally think of fitness, you may think about going to the gym, running a marathon, or playing a sport. On one hand you’d be correct. Each one of these tasks involves a specific level of fitness and can make you more fit.
But the question I want you to consider is, “Why is fitness valuable?”
Over the weekend, my wife, my sister-in-law, and myself had the opportunity to catch up with a friend of ours named Pat. We were talking about the past, and Pat mentioned how bodybuilding was a big part of her life when she was younger.
It gave her a goal to work toward and that motivated her. The only problem was she wasn’t able to do it for a very long. She had to be consistent with her workouts and restrictive with her diet to produce optimal results.
This type of training wasn’t sustainable long-term. It’s very easy to get burnt out when you have to be on such a regimented program.
As we were talking though, the subject came up of how to stay consistent with your fitness. We talked about how it’s hard to stay motivated, when you don’t have a specific goal to work towards.
And I started thinking to myself about why fitness is important to me. Currently, I don’t have a specific goal I’m trying to achieve through my training.
Of course, I want to be lean and stay lean. But I’m not trying to lose weight, drop clothing sizes, or compete in a fitness competition.
The answer I ultimately came up with is that I train to be fit for whatever life throws at me. It’s not about one specific thing. It’s about sustaining my fitness for life.
I’ll give you an example. A few months back, I traveled to Orlando to stay with my brother for the weekend. He lives in this big apartment complex that has a few grassy areas to take your dog if they want to play and run around.
One of the areas is gated and locked. I would say the gate is about 7 feet tall or so.
I decided to take my dog to this particular area and wound up getting locked inside. You needed a key card to unlock the door, which I forgot to grab from my brother. I also forgot to bring my cellphone so I couldn’t call anyone.
I figured the only way I was getting out was to climb over the gate. So I reached up and placed my hands on top, jumped up and swung my legs around to the other side. Once I was out, I went back around to get my dog and made sure to leave the door open.
The point of the story is that if I were not fit, I wouldn’t have been able to jump over the gate. I would have had to wait until someone was walking by to let me out. Life threw me a sticky situation and I was adequately able to handle it because of my general fitness.
If you’ve ever watched the tv show The Office, there’s a joke that Dwight says that comes to mind. He says, “Life is short. False. It’s the longest thing you do.” 
He’s absolutely right. While we often think of life as short, there’s nothing we will ever do that’s longer. And because of that, I want to make sure I’m prepared for anything and everything.
That’s what motivates me to continue training week in and week out. And the good thing about training for life is that it’s less restrictive.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Having a goal to train for is very valuable, and I believe everybody needs that. But you won’t be training for the same goal for the rest of your life right? You’ll hopefully achieve it.
So you need something to fall back on. Something that you can sustain long-term, maybe while you’re searching for your next milestone to accomplish.
That’s where training for life comes into play. And like I said it’s less restrictive. You don’t always have to track calories, measure food, or set personal records in the gym.
If you’re training for a bodybuilding show, you have to follow your diet to the letter. You have to consistently hit the gym 4-6 days per week. That’s extremely tough to do. But the thing that allows you to be so strict is a deadline.
Competitions and goals have deadlines. You won’t live like that forever, just the few months leading up to the show. That keeps you motivated until it’s finished.
Less restriction means more sustainability. And that’s the name of the game.
Less restriction means it’s ok to eat off plan a few times a week because you have friends in town. It means it’s ok if you only make it to the gym 2 times per week because you wanted to go watch your child’s soccer game instead. It typically fits your life and schedule better.
At the beginning of this post, I mentioned one of the definitions of fitness is “the quality of being suitable to fulfill a particular role or task”. The reason why I like this definition so much is I believe it adequately describes the reason why fitness is important to me.
The primary reason fitness is valuable is because it prepares you to handle whatever life throws at you. That may be playing with your kids and not getting tired, playing in an adult recreation sport league because you miss the competitive nature of sports, hiking up one of your favorite trails, or even jumping over a gate because you trapped yourself inside. 🙂
Whatever your reason is, that’s why fitness is valuable. And it’s one thing I believe we all should strive for.
