7 Untold Yet Important Reasons to Train
Originally published on July 15, 2013 on 7MTJ - 7 Mindset Tips Journal
This is a very old blog post that comes from my first blog in 2013. Nostalgia made me put it back here.
In commercials about sports, physical training, or martial arts programs, recurring arguments to motivate participants are often health, mood effects after physically letting off steam, pride in physical performance (“Bench press X kg in Y days”), pride in good looks (“Get ripped,” “Six pack,” and other body-based messaging), camaraderie, and fun.
In case these conventional motivations are not enough for you to get into training, here are some other reasons to consider.
The 7 Deeper Reasons
1. Feeling of Safety for Future Aging
When the past comes to mind, I try to change burdens into springboards. When the future comes to mind, I see it like a cart I have to push, not really seeing what lies ahead, but with a minimum of control over steering and my pushing effort.
Most future circumstances are mysterious (fortunately!), and the things I can try to keep consistent over time are attitude and skills (even though the latter will slowly fade away). Every time I train my awareness, agility, balance, or flexibility, I am lightening the cart of a future load of fear—fear of slipping on the floor, fear of accidents, etc.
It does not make me invulnerable, but it can have the same effect as a placebo vaccine: confidence grows, and strength of the immune system follows.
2. Responsibility Towards Youth’s Health
Even if I grew up eating home-cooked foods (thanks mom & grandma), these recent years have also seen unprecedented changes in the food sector. Especially, taste engineering and resource industrialization are progressing more and more rapidly, for better and for worse.
Not diving into the debate of how good or bad these changes are for the world, I simply observe the growing number of children suffering from pathological obesity, or dealing with damaging overweight issues. To maintain balance (again: it is not about good vs. evil), among other reasons, I have chosen to learn all I can about health, food, and other human body-related topics.
I plan to do this all my life (as an amateur for the moment), and physical training is part of the job. Somehow, this is a choice of position in society’s equilibrium.
3. Understanding the (Un-)Importance of Looks
As mentioned in a previous article, you meet all kinds of surprising individuals in the training world, especially those whose looks don’t match what you expect from them. For sure, there is a statistical average correlation between looks and physical performance.
However, once you start training, you discover the whole range of physical feats that are invisible in pictures. Especially when you try the “invisible skills” yourself, each discovery gives you the pleasurable “Aha!” effect. Not only does it free you from the burden of body image concerns, but it also teaches you to observe beyond your primary intuitions.
4. Appreciation Through Contrast
When you know illness, you learn to appreciate health. When you know hunger, you learn to appreciate food. When you train, you feel fatigue, sore muscles, physical constraint, internal pain (when stretching, for example) or external pain (when you get hit), adversity, and the humility of not knowing.
On top of getting fitter and developing skills, the natural balance of deprivation and recovery teaches you to appreciate what you have when not training, however insignificant it might seem beforehand. Water feels the best after a training session in hot weather, your bed feels like heaven after a long day of hard work… and on and on, simple life after training makes you happier than sophisticated life before training.
5. Attitude Towards Effort
Imagine that you train for weeks, months, years, with very slow improvement in your physical performance or fighting skills. If you had the right mindset while training, you will figure out that even though the physical efficiency of your training may need review, you probably developed a parallel invisible skill: Attitude towards effort.
This is the ability to look at an incredible amount of effort—no matter how hopeless final achievement might seem, no matter how frustrated you can expect to feel—and this ability gives you the power to jump into the fire and give all your heart on a regular basis for the long term.
6. Readiness to Take Care of Those Who Need Help
I may be emphasizing this reason due to my personal experience of living with aged—formerly less healthy—people (parents who are about sixty, and grandmother of about 90). As the young man of the house, some chores requiring strength or balance are obviously mine to accomplish. With parents inevitably aging, the range of tasks I will have to accomplish for them will inevitably widen.
Beyond parents only, there will probably be lots of people on my path who could need my help, whether explicitly or implicitly. How often have you thought “Somebody has to do the job, and I am the only one who can do it, whether I like it or not”? How often do you expect these situations to happen again?
If the answer to these questions is “Frequently,” you need to find the stamina, strength, and patience to care. The only possibilities for you are training, strategizing (on task efficiency), or hiring help. Just in case your mind fails at strategizing, or your wallet fails at hiring, think of training!
7. Often a Cheap, Accessible, Shareable, and Unlimited Leisure Activity
I realized recently that in recent months, my leisure moved from a consuming mindset (books, movies, shows, games, music, and restaurants) to a creating mindset (writing articles, training, playing guitar, cooking, or producing gifts).
Maybe this trend was due to some financial restrictions I imposed on myself, but I figured out that the ratio “Number of (potential) leisure hours”/”Total cost” dramatically increased. Not only do I save way more money than before, but my life also slowed down to a more sustainable level, far away from binge consumption (whether on physical goods/services or mental goods/services).
Conclusion
These deeper motivations for training go beyond the surface-level benefits typically promoted. They touch on fundamental aspects of character development, social responsibility, and life preparation that compound over time.
Training becomes not just about physical improvement, but about building the internal resources necessary to navigate an uncertain future and serve others effectively. It’s an investment in becoming the kind of person who can handle whatever life presents with grace and capability.
The physical benefits are real and important, but these invisible gains—in attitude, resilience, and readiness to serve—may prove even more valuable in the long run.
I wish you to enjoy training and its side effects as much as I do now.
Have a smiling day!