Fitness Can Be Found Anywhere
A few lessons I've learned...
In today's day and age, we're able to travel farther and longer than ever before. We have remote jobs, family vacations and personal travel concurrent throughout the year.
And while the traveling and exploration of the world may be blissful, it sometimes hinders our ability to indulge in fitness...or so we think. It's easy to abort fitness when away from home or your local gym because you don't see it accessible anymore. (Where's the nearest box?!)
However, all it takes is the right mentality and a little awareness to keep the fire burning! Included are three principals I find to be the cornerstone for delivering fitness anywhere. Both together can lead anyone to an active mind and body no matter what the environment:
1.) Your body is all you need!
So you don't have plates and barbells, or any fancy machines...so what! How much do you weigh? That question is asked not to embarrass anyone but to highlight the fact that you have that much resistance accessible to you at all times. We are so fixated on using our body to move other objects (weight lifting) when we can strongly develop just by learning to better move our body itself (gymnastics). When we're on the go we must shift our focus of intensity from varied loads to varied time and modal domains.
For example, without weights we can't increase the resistance of a squat as easily as adding more plates but, we can raise the difficulty of an air squat by doing them single leg (pistols). This is just one example of many and we can do this with any range of motion or exercise with the body. Never underestimate the power of a body weight workout!
2.) Explore the world around you!
Not to mention it's a great way to explore the new area you're visiting but, getting out and seeing what the new location has to offer can boost your fitness as well! Visiting China? Walk the Great Wall. You're in Australia? Hike Mount Kosciuszko, the tallest on the mainland. Or maybe you're just stuck in a hotel in some big metropolis for work? Find the hotel pool and start treading water! Tell me how that feels after 30 seconds. Anyway, the point is we have to "Unbox" our minds in order to explore this wonderful world of fitness we have around us. Anything we see can be used to support our goals of staying active and fit while traveling if we see it that way!
Your body presents the greatest tool available to you. Humans existed and grew as a species because we adapted, grew and learned to use our bodies and minds together. With all of this fancy gym equipment, coaching available to us, humans aren't really challenged much anymore....and unless we start to think outside the box, we won't grow and adapt into more successful beings. Challenge yourself today, and that brings us to lesson number three.
3.) Don't Ever Stop
Humans were built to use our bodies. Every animal was. No one was meant to be couped up and be lethargic our whole lives, nor sit at a desk or just lay on a beach. We were meant to move! And the point of fitness is not to only workout for one hour a day simply because it's healthy....
Gym's and CrossFit have evolved into this 'necessity' where people are forced into a way of thinking that we should pay money to exercise when the greatest potential to exercise already exists within us and in the great outdoors! It's not about being the strongest man or woman out there, it's about improving your ability to be functionally fit. To improve your range of motion, capability and build a stronger body (mentally and physically) each and every day! It's bricklaying at its finest. One day after another, don't ever stop. Fitness is a marathon, and a journey all in one, meant to be taken in one direction. Forward.
~ That's all for now. Reach me on Twitter @athletecoachT and find our new friends @fittest_travel on twitter as well.