Training Desk Vol 1 Issue 26: Exercise is the vehicle

When I was in college and I started learning exercise science, I quickly realized that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and that there’s something special about health and fitness. What I didn’t know was how that would manifest itself in my career. As a former high school athlete, I told everyone that “if I can’t be an athlete, I want to heal them.” At the time I wanted to be a physical therapist. Then I took organic chemistry; I took it, I didn’t pass it. I guess physical therapy isn’t happening. I ended up completely falling in love with physical and health education. Still my career morphed in strange ways and fast forward here I am as a personal trainer looking at exercise in new and challenging ways every year. I’ve run multiple half and full marathons. I have triathlon on my radar and I’m building a training philosophy and program around multi-sport. And working with small businesses to develop a wellness program is looking more and more like a win-win business model. 

In this issue of Training Desk, I’ve collected a few resources where exercise is the vehicle to get other things done. There’s no silver bullet in life but I am blessed to work in an industry that has so many auxiliary benefits. Exercise truly is medicine but coaching is required. Sign me up!

In Albuquerque, Addicts2Athletes exists to “unite mind, body and spirit through all recovery philosophies, education and exercise.” What a powerful program. Of course there’s complication factors here including the prison system and lots of people’s past that creep back in to make recovery an extremely difficult challenge. But seeing exercise as a foundational building block in the addiction and sobriety world provides a lot of hope for practitioners. 

A couple weeks ago I listened to an episode of the Art of Manliness podcast titled, “How Fitness, Fellowship, and Faith Are the Cure for Sad Clown Syndrome.” For a great story on how relationships can fuel great workouts, (sorry, probably guy-focused on this one) you’ll love this episode. I feel like this is lighting in a bottle. I think these guys just caught the right mood, method, and men at the right time and struck it rich. That being said I believe most people long to belong to a group like this. Community is a big deal. Building momentum around fitness is also a big deal. And I believe at some point we all think about where we came from and where we’re going after this life on earth. Combine faith, fitness and fellowship and you have the F3 Movement.

Last week I announced that I made the top six for Best of Madison in the personal training category and the support this week has been fun and encouraging. Of course I’d appreciate your vote but you can only vote once! What you can do is tell your friends to vote for me also. Win or lose, being recognized in this competition has pushed me to think of my clients and their goals and progress in new ways. It’s always important to hit the reset button and take and inventory on where you’re at and where you’re going. You can get to the voting page from my announcement on my website.

Thanks for reading! Happy training.