I think about this a lot really, why would I want to keep going into my little home gym week in and week out and put my body through the effort of breaking a sweat and making my muscles sore?
On the surface that is exactly what training and exercise is, you go into the gym, you lift heavy things, get sore than leave to deal with the DOMS later. But exercise is really much more to me than that.
I've been siting here writing and deleting this paragraph trying to articulate what exactly the gym means to me, and I'm having trouble putting it into words. The gym is a safe space for me, its the place I can go where for a brief moment all of my worries and issues vanish and I am set with a singular focus, lift heavy things and push myself to get better in this one single thing.
The gym has changed my life in ways that I am discovering every day, from the way that I see myself to the self confidence that I have to do things that I never thought I could or would, like write these blogs. The "fitness palace of love" as Simon Miller calls it, is something that I wish everyone understood the benefits of outside of the ones on the surface. While getting a good pump and creating the physique that you desire is great, its the little things that the gym does for me that make it all worthwhile, like the sense of accomplishment after finishing a workout. Especially a workout that you maybe had some self-doubt that you would be able to accomplish, and these types of things radiate into your regular life outside of the gym.
When I sat down here to write this gym blog, I had so many good ideas in my mind of how much the gym and exercise mean to me and why I feel its important in my life, but I found it hard to write the couple of paragraphs that I did. Its the intangible's that make getting out there and being active worth while and what make it in my opinion the best thing that I do for myself every week.
But I want to hear what you have to say. What makes going to the gym, or if you don't go to the gym but make a constant effort to be active, what makes you keep wanting to come back, and what would you miss if you stopped going?
Thanks for reading, and I look forward to seeing what you have to say in the comments.
Kyle Croft