Do You Even Lift Bro?

Similar I’m sure to many of my friends, I spent the first month of quarantine in relax mode. It was spring break of course, and I knew I wasn’t gonna be heading back to school any time soon. That meant vacation time. Time to stay up late and wake up in the afternoon. Time to watch Netflix all day, and bake, and eat, and play video games, and all of the above. However, just like almost everything in life, after weeks of doing the same thing – nothing – I started to get a little bored. And after scrolling through Instagram being bombarded with home workout tutorials from jacked people telling me to get my ass out of bed, I realized I was wasting away the days. I thought of how this is the perfect time to improve myself, so that’s exactly what I began doing.

In this article of Clears, he shares a very similar view to the one I have always had surrounding fitness and weight lifting. It’s the idea that yes, you should be working out. Nowadays, everyone is pretty fragile, and it’s easy to say the wrong thing when talking about fitness and body stuff. I commend Clear for saying it how it is, because the truth is, everyone capable should be working out. Now, like he mentions in the opening of the article, this isn’t necessarily because everyone needs to look a certain way, because that would be a crude statement to make. However, I truly believe that the rhetoric that everyone should commit to working out is an important one.

When you break it all down, theres a reason for everything in life. There’s a reason why we think Ferraris look nice and why attending Harvard is so cool. It’s because all these things represent something bigger, thats why they are so attractive. The same goes for people. It’s no secret that the majority of the world find fit people more attractive than those who are less fit. The reason we think these people are so hot is because they represent a mental strength and personality trait that is attractive. Their six pack is just a by-product of hard work and commitment. I recently read something from someone that explained why they lift weights. They said it’s because fitness is special in the sense that it is only attainable from within. It cant be bought, obtained, learned, etc. It can only be earned by ones self.

The other day, my family and I were having a discussion in the kitchen about working out. I brought up a point I believe, stating that working out is more about the journey than the destination. My Mum, however, did not agree. She thought the opposite. That got me thinking, as I was determined to prove to myself that my theory was correct. I settled on the fact that there’s a reason why bodybuilders continue to work out. They don’t come to a point where they look in the mirror and go “Well that’s good enough!”. No, they continue to work, because the feeling of knowing you’re pushing yourself is far more valuable than the feeling of knowing you have huge biceps.

Anyways, my point is that I am not working out because I want to look jacked for summer. I’m working out because I know it’s good for me, and everyday I wake up feeling better about myself. Ever since I made the commitment to log my daily habits using Streaks, I have noticed an enormous jump in my daily motivation and happiness. It has become so engrained in to me at this point, that feeling of daily success when I press that streak is one I crave constantly. In fact, just last night as I closed my final water intake streak of the day, I noticed that I had consumed 4 L of water a day for two whole weeks, even though it felt like just the other day I started.

Reading through this article really helped reinforce the values I believe in when it comes to fitness. Working out is now what I look forward to when I wake up, and no longer something I dread dragging myself out of bed to do. That feeling of satisfaction will only continue to grow as I build upon my streak over the months to come. I look forward to watching my motivation grow, and sure, maybe my biceps too!…