Why train?
I train to rise above the mediocre.
While not ideal I hear the sounds of the television, canned laughter, and cackling from the “living room” as I prepare mentally for another night’s pushups.
Often mentally a slog, hence nightly not morning pushups, it’s ritual I’ll likely always do. It’s been over 10 of almost 25 years thus far. I don’t know that I could make myself stop.
I once received an anonymous letter saying to me “why go to the gym, when you have nothing going for you, why care about the body”
What the likely sedentary individual sending me possible hate mail didn’t get was the question answers itself.
I went to the gym then, and I continue to train, PT, now as always, as it’s a variable I can ALWAYS control.
The homeless bodybuilding post I wrote near the site’s beginning while somewhat over the top, crude even, holds a point deeply ingrained in my psyche that I was trying to convey : You can always train.
While the bastards try to beat you down with compounding minutiae day after day…you can always train.
In the most confined and/or poorest of circumstances you will have your bodyweight at a minimum…always.
Strapped to a bed in a looney bin or super max prison you can flex, and do your isometrics against the restraints.
You can always train.
They can’t take that from you.
EVER.
You can be forced to move away from a solid gym, you can get priced out, even kicked out of gyms.
You can be the only one around that cares to maintain physical condition… but in the end the drive to train is on you, ample tools are always there. You can still train.
I train so as to have something. I train so as to have something to teach to progeny, and to those who have need. I train as a matter of pride. I train…
Motivation will wax and wane. Equipment and the access to it will come and go. You may find yourself doing pushups on concrete and eating ramen for dinner.
There’s so much more to it than how you look, the social aspect of a gym, or the feeling like a beast that comes with steaks and heavy weights.
It’s far deeper than just getting in habitual calisthenics. So much more.
You have control, and you decide.
To what end they ask…
I leave you this ; why train?
Persistence & Tenacity