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Off-Topic Training goals and motivations

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Personally, i've discovered it's become a great habit. And I like moving heavy things around with confidence and without pain.

As for goals, i'm probably better at keeping my mind from wandering if I don't have a specific goal. I want to meet timeless simple because i've been working for it for a while, but it's not my challenge I came up with and set myself.
I merely accepted it. However I can't quit, I would get annoyed at myself if I didn't go ahead and do it.

It reminds me of something from Dan John's recent short book about doing your best throws while hungover - you show up (an important DJ tenet), and do work that you know is productive, and amazing things happen when you're not necessarily going for amazing.

Just my 10 rupees.
 
SMalishev said:
It reminds me of something from Dan John's recent short book about doing your best throws while hungover - you show up (an important DJ tenet), and do work that you know is productive, and amazing things happen when you're not necessarily going for amazing.
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I like this a lot. It resonates a lot with my attraction to the "martial arts monk" style of training, where you do the same thing nearly every day, and veeeeerrrry slowly make it more difficult until you're doing something incredible.
 
North Coast Miller said:
Functionality. I work blue collar and am generally active. I want my capacity to always run at a surplus.
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My motivation is also largely job related.
I've broken bones, sprained joints, thrown my back out, and been concussed from my job (and then had to work around the injuries while rehabbing them). Having a greater than needed ability to meet the physical demands placed on me is a necessity for my longevity.
 
bluejeff said:
I am questioning what my goals really are, why I desire them, and how I can create healthy goals driven by healthy motivations. These questions are becoming more important to me as I get closer to turning 40 (I am 37 right now).
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I think you express something similar to how I was feeling at the start of this year, only I'm living on the wrong side of 50. Thank goodness I stumbled upon Pavel's interviews with Tim Ferris and Joe Rogan... and so my StrongFirst journey began:

I'd always been active and healthy, but January 2020 (post Rugby World Cup Japan [I live in Tokyo] and festive season) found me out-of-shape and feeling out-of-sorts. My father, his brother, and their father suffered from high blood pressure and all died in their early seventies from heart-disease-related conditions.

Since I want to continue to avoid the [dare I say "iatrogenic"] medications route they went down at all costs, as well as my ostensible genetic due-date, health is front and center of my motivation and goals.

Learning about AGT, energy systems, mitochondrial biogenesis and respiration has been the big game-changer for me; learning how to snatch and learning about "youth-restoring calisthenics", too.

I dig the BUILT TO LAST section of The Quick and the Dead and the metaphor of building a cathedral. Elsewhere on this forum, this cathedral-building is expressed as training for "The Centenarian Olympics". I've still got just under another 50 years to prepare for this event...
 
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When in doubt, focus on strength. This has served me well for a while now. Strength trickles down so well to the other modalities. This is STRONGfirst.

Pick a program and spend 10 weeks and add 5 lb to your press, deadlift, and squat. Then do it again, then do it again. After years, you realize you are not only stronger, but your physique is a lot better, you feel better, your health is better, you are more prepared for physical activities/sports, etc... All of this is by accident. All you were focused on was adding 5 lb to your lift.
 
When I do something, I want to do it well. I study it, I assess, I practice, repeat.
I love the phrase "mastery is an asymptote". I will never be perfect, but darn it's fun trying isn't it?
In general I love learning new things. Learn a little bit about alot, and alot about a little. I'm no polymath but there are a few things I dive DEEP into. I think I'm naturally obsessive, but I've found ways keep that healthy (and I think here I have found studying stoic philosophy wildly helpful) and not get caught up in results. I have great trust that my process will give me the best chance of "results", whatever those may be.
 
Just asking these questions shows some maturity and wisdom. It is a good path.

Personally, I came to the conclusion that I have very modest fitness goals. So a simple, very low risk program works for me.

I ask myself occasionally how I am most likely to get injured right now...if the answer has anything to do with training, I need to reevaluate. If the answer is mountain biking, surfing, working in the yard, trail running, perfectly OK. Those are the reason for my training.
 
bluejeff said:
So some short background:

I have spent the last 5 years or so working my butt off in order to be able to teach at a primarily bodyweight and calisthenics gym here in Denver Colorado. Sadly, because of covid regulations, we were not able to keep enough students to keep running, and the gym had to permanently close. Some friends of mine had started their own gym to teach the same kinds of things. They had reached out to me to possibly teach there since I now did not have a place to teach; but now they, too, have had to close their physical location (I believe they are still running online/zoom classes though).

After hearing the news of the second gym closing, it got me thinking. Since being in quarantine, and barely teaching anyone in person, I felt the "need" to become very proficient subside, and I began branching out into more kettlebell training. I have often found myself feeling anxious about "the right training plan" because I felt this overwhelming need to get really strong and have big muscles or whatever. To be honest, I still have those thoughts, but I'm questioning why.

The lack of a place to teach has ultimately left me in a position where I am questioning what my goals really are, why I desire them, and how I can create healthy goals driven by healthy motivations. These questions are becoming more important to me as I get closer to turning 40 (I am 37 right now).

Why do I want some advanced bodyweight skill? Why do I care about putting a heavy kettlebell over my head someday? I still want these things, but. . .why?

To gain some perspective, I thought I would ask here:

What motivates you to train? Rather, I mean what drives you?

Do you like competition? Do you feel the need to feel better about yourself? Are you in the military or law enforcement? If so, how does that affect your training motivation? Are you simply wanting to stay healthy and energetic as you age? WHY do you have the goals you do?

Looking forward to some training philosophy with everyone :)
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Thanks for this post.

I’ve joined this forum specifically to respond here and hopefully learn more from others on this topic.

I’m the same as you @bluejeff, approaching 40 (in 2 months) and despite 20 years of weight training behind me, have had a bit of an existential crisis on my motivations.

Up to now it’s pretty much been self-image, social and a touch of vanity driving fitness discipline. Mental health benefits too as a consequence, but not significant enough for me to be disciplined in training specifically to avoid poor mental health.

Maybe it’s the 40 milestone, or the extra introspection we’ve all had via lockdowns and remote work - but I’m really questioning my current ‘why’.

I can relate to @coyotl‘s comments that he trains because it’s a part of his identity, but I struggle to use that alone as motivation to continue.

My best shot at articulating my new philosophy would be - it’s important to embrace the grind. That we’re not designed for our current sedentary societies and finding opportunites to weave real physical challenge into our lives daily is how we keep alive.

Looking forward to reading more as this thread evolves. Nice to be here.
 
Cyrus said:
My best shot at articulating my new philosophy would be - it’s important to embrace the grind.
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Yes. I think I get that out of every training session. Certainly not the whole session, but there's always something about it that is difficult, and presents a challenge. It may be a hard and heavy single lift or set, but it also could be technical mastery of lighter sets, precision in carrying out sets/reps/rest, overcoming a particular problem with movement or position, a mental aspect, or even something like learning to use a new piece of equipment or accessory. You engage with something, and you come out better for it. Every time.

Cyrus said:
That we’re not designed for our current sedentary societies and finding opportunites to weave real physical challenge into our lives daily is how we keep alive.
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Sounds like one of my favorite Mark Rippetoe quotes. "Humans are not physically normal in the absence of hard physical effort."

And, welcome to the forum, @Cyrus !
 
I'm resurrecting this thread because I read something this morning that threw me a bit back into this "training/existential crises." If mods want a new thread I'll happily make one :)

I don't know what everyone thinks of Ido Portal around here, but he does raise some interesting points from time to time.

This is from his post to social media today, accompanied by a montage of him doing a lot of deep crawling variations (a chest-to-floor lizard crawl is no joke by the way):
If you’re not interested in doing push ups as your end goal, you should ask yourself why you are doing them and whether there are better ways to go about it. Such questions led me to discover and develop my own practice. They still orient me today.- Ido Portal
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So let me preface this by saying that I love pushups and really want to be able to do advanced pushup skills at some point. In no way am I saying that doing pushups is "wrong," or stupid or anything like that.

That being said:

Why do we feel cool about being able to do 100s of pushups in a day? Or lift (insert # here) pounds/kgs overhead? To say we can? So we can explore our limits at something that has far surpassed what could called "functional?" I'm not about to drop the training I do because I do enjoy it. But let's say I acheive my goals of higher level calisthenics skills. Then what?

I saw a roundtable discussion between some influential calisthenics names and one of them explained how he spent years learning the one arm handstand YEARS. That's common. Years of doing the same exact thing(s) day after day after day with barely any visible progress. Then one say, there it is. He said that he obviously felt very excited, but shortly after was like "and now I'm 'Bored'."

It's that "now what?" feeling. You've spent this massive amount of time and energy working towards something, and then when you get it, it's like..... "oh, that's it?"

By no means am I saying that any of our goals are not worth pursuing. But it is interesting to ponder/meditate on why we train beyond anything that will just keep us "healthy and fit" (whatever that personally means to you). Obviously there are those that train to enhance their sport, which has its own motivations, but for those of us that just like to swing kettlebells or press weight overhead and whatnot....

I'll stop before I start repeating myelf :) Looking forward to some more thoughts on this.
 
A zen Roshi and a Hindu guru were walking together along a riverbank and decided to visit an adjacent island.
“Lets walk to the island” said the guru.
”Why not take the ferry?” suggested the Roshi.
”Because” said the guru ” I’ve spent twenty years learning how to walk on water”
” Why take twenty years learning to walk on water,” asked the Roshi, ”when you can take a ferry for a penny”

- zen story
 
offwidth said:
A zen Roshi and a Hindu guru were walking together along a riverbank and decided to visit an adjacent island.
“Lets walk to the island” said the guru.
”Why not take the ferry?” suggested the Roshi.
”Because” said the guru ” I’ve spent twenty years learning how to walk on water”
” Why take twenty years learning to walk on water,” asked the Roshi, ”when you can take a ferry for a penny”

- zen story
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I've heard variations of that one. It's good.
 
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