From The Desk of Maverick Brenton.
Subject: The True Purpose of Physical Training.
Would you like to know the real reason to train?
The only reason to train?
I’ll tell you.
The real reason to train is to prepare.
To prepare for the trials and tribulations of life.
That is the real reason to train.
Training is a tool to strengthen your body and mind so that you can be strong when life punches you in the mouth, because life is going to punch you in the mouth.
More than once.
That’s a promise.
When life comes swinging and sits you on your ass, you can’t afford to be weak - you need to be strong.
Your body needs to be strong.
A strong body is a strong mind.
So make your body stronger than straight tequila.
Turn yourself into a real motherfucker.
Build your body and mind into a fortress with Clint Eastwood at the front gate, sticking his 357 Magnum in the face of any negative bullshit that tries to get inside and weaken you.
“Go Ahead. Make My Day.”
Sure, you can go to the gym and see your training as something you do to be healthy.
As something you do to stay in shape and look good.
That’s perfectly fine.
But.
Why not make it more meaningful than that?
Why not see your training as a fight?
A fight against weakness and decay.
Why not see your training as preparation for life outside the gym?
For the challenges and obstacles you must overcome in life.
For the left and right hooks that life is going to throw at you and land.
The gym and life are exactly the same.
You go through pain and you suffer.
Then you become stronger because of that.
Approach every workout you do with this mentality and every workout you do becomes meaningful.
Every workout has a purpose.
Every workout becomes a metaphor for life - it is preparation for your life.
You are not just in there to look good and move weight around.
You are in there to prepare your body and your mind for life – by training them to endure and overcome pain.
This is the real benefit of lifting weights and physical training.
The aesthetics you acquire are a bonus, the real benefit is the discipline that you build.
The real benefit is the toughening of your body and your mind.
You can go in there anytime life is fucking with you and you can use the iron to sweat it all out.
You can find clarity through the pain.
Because life will fuck with you.
It does with all of us.
You just need to be prepared for it.
You need to be ready to handle the pain of life.
Training prepares you because training is nothing but handling pain and pushing through that pain.
We know if we do that and we get through that pain, we will get a little stronger.
Life is no different – when we are handed shit, we can either complain about it or we can turn it into an opportunity to improve.
We can use it to get better.
When things are tough in my life - I live inside the gym.
I train my entire body every single day and I push myself to the limit every single day.
I sweat out the stress and I sweat out the uncertainty.
Through loving the pain and being in the moment, clarity comes to me.
Clarity comes through motion.
Clarity does not come from sitting on your fucking ass.
While the training itself will not fix your problems outside the gym, it enhances your ability deal with them.
The gym is like the locker room in a football game.
You get in there to refresh your mind, get yourself together and focus before you head back out onto the field for another match.
The field you play on is life.
The opposing team are all the problems in life.
They will charge at you, they will try to crush you and they will win if you are weak and unfocused.
That’s why you get in the locker room and you prepare.
When we view training this way, the perspective changes our attitude completely.
We go from looking at the gym as something we have to do - something that is a chore.
To looking at the gym as something that will give us more strength, more clarity and more energy to handle life.
This is why people become addicted to it.
Not only does it feel good to see your body grow stronger – the training itself brings clarity to your mind and more energy to your body.
The gym is a tool.
A tool to build strength both physically and mentally.
World Champion Powerlifter Brandon Lily once said that the barbell is not just a piece of steel that you slide weights onto.
The barbell is a gift.
He also saw training as something more.
As a way to prepare for life and strengthen your entire being.
Faced with an injury that would have crippled most people, he used the gym to rebuild himself and come back even better than before.
He turned his pain into an opportunity to improve and become a stronger warrior.
This is what he means by the barbell is a gift.
It gave him the strength and the passion to come back from an injury that would end most people.
This has been the path of many elite lifters who suffer serious injuries and are told they will never lift another weight again.
They ignore that bullshit and they come back even better than before.
They come back stronger, faster and better.
Not too long ago I was hit by a handful of injuries that left me unable to do most things in the gym and in daily life.
The only thing I could do without making my injuries worse was pull ups – so I adapted and I became a beast at pull ups.
Over time I rehabbed my injuries and eventually I came back.
Now I am stronger on a physical and mental level.
So, learn to see the gym as a tool to strengthen your body and mind.
If you can do that, you will not stand around flexing in the mirror and you will not waste time talking with everyone.
You will be focused because you are there for a reason and that reason is to become a better person.
When you are enduring the pain of a hard set, you will not give in, because you will know that giving in will not only make you weaker in the gym, it will also make you weaker in life.
So you fight it.
You push harder.
You win.
Until next time.
Filed under · Bodybuilding
