it began with a parade

This weekend I helped out the gym I train out of by walking in the local parade.  Our goal was to create awareness about this new women's gym by handing out flyers good for a free week of classes along with a gym membership.  When I handed women the flyer I got mixed reactions. Some were very thankful and seemed genuinely interested as they had not heard about the place.  Some didn't seem to care and I felt like they were probably just annoyed by the flyer they would now need to dispose of.  Some responded with, "do I look like I need to workout?!?!"  It was said with a lot of attitude, annoyance and disgust.  And in comes my strong thoughts on this:

No matter who you are or what you look like I think everyone needs exercise.  This isn't based on a judgement of appearance.  It's based on the belief that I have about exercise being an important role in everyday life.  Our bodies were meant to be used.  Day to day modern American culture doesn't typically include a physically grueling experience.  We have to work at it.  That means we might belong to a gym, get a workout buddy, sign up for classes or hire a trainer.  I'm a trainer, I do this for a living and I sign up for classes, I have a workout buddy, and believe it or not I'm fixing to hire a trainer.  I just do what I have to do in order to workout and I've found that I'm not very good at working out by myself.  I used to be good at working out by myself but I'm not anymore because I've found it's so much more fun to go to a class or workout with someone else. 

And lastly on exercise, but not least, because I believe this is very important and widely overlooked. Exercise and feel the difference!  I think far too many of us go through life on auto-pilot and forget to enjoy a situation when it's not obvious to do so.  The primary reason I exercise is because I feel good while doing it.  I understand there may be a lot of people reading this that don't understand this concept.  There may be a ton of reasons as to why that is the case.  One possible explanation could be because we're typically resistant to exercise.  We put it to ourselves as a task we have to do versus one we get to do. Maybe your view has always been "no pain no gain" or maybe there's a negative connotation because of a past experience.  Either way I'm here to shake your view on this topic in that exercise is meant to be enjoyed.  It's an area of grey: it can (and should be) eased into, you don't have to break a sweat, you don't have to do any exact thing; just move.  The whole purpose is to move our bodies as a constant reminder that it can move.  If it doesn't move it forgets how.  Be thankful it can move. There are many bodies that cannot move.  If yours can move, practice moving it in a different way daily because we're never thankful for what we have until we don't have it anymore.

Special side-note: make any form of exercise a priority especially if you have trouble sleeping.  Chances are your brain is tired from working all day but your body is not because it hasn't worked nearly as hard as your brain.  I get this response most often when working with someone that has been on an exercise sabbatical, they tell me they slept the best they had in years because of the work we did that day.  There really isn't anything like a good nights sleep.