When I was a child I was indestructible. Nothing in this world could hurt me because I was young and stupid. I haven't experienced any level of true physical or emotional pain during these years. I also had my mother there to protect me. Now that I am less young and a little less stupid I know I am not indestructible anymore.
Everyone knows the benefits of exercise. The majority of people know that exercise gets your body into shape and "tones" you up. Everyone knows that exercise promotes longer lives. It is just common sense. It is like knowing that eating healthy is good for your body. People know these concepts and know them better than they give themselves credit for. The only problem is not enough people engage in these activities enough, myself included.
So if people can't be motivated for vanity reasons or because they just love being strong and in shape I propose another reason. Being strong and in shape decreases your chance of injury or getting hurt by the world around you. Yes by simply being stronger you chances of survival dramatically increase.
Let me explain this more. The first time I heard about being strong acting as a barrier to injury was when I was in football. The head coach was talking to a group of players about the importance of strength training. He said something like "If there was only two exercises I would have you do it would be the power clean and using the 4-way neck machine." I was dumbfounded for a moment. "The 4-way neck machine? What the hell is he talking about that thing is dumb? Why isn't he telling us to bench press or squat more?" He then said, "I want you guys using that 4-way neck machine every time your in here to lift weights. You see if you get your neck strong, the chances of you hurting your neck, spine, or head go down."
That is when the light bulb went off in my head. Coach said some other stuff that made sense to. He talked about making sure we were getting stronger not just so we can kill people on the field, but so we don't get killed if we took a massive hit. The more mass, especially muscle mass I have the less chance I will get injuries when I am knocked to the ground.
This logic stuck with me. Lifting weights and being in shape just doesn't make me stronger and look better. It also makes me resistance to the blows of life. Now here is where the shit gets deep. Imagine you wake up in the middle of the night. You smell smoke, then the detector goes off. Adrenaline spikes and you shoot out of bed. Your husband or wife isn't waking up. They passed out due to CO levels and you realize you don't feel so well yourself. You have two children in different rooms of the house. What do you do?
Scenarios like this happen everyday in the world. One day, sooner or later, you will have to call onto your strength and endurance in order to survive. Maybe you fell off your house trying to fix the dish and now you have to crawl to get to a phone (you were too stupid to keep your cell phone on you). Or maybe you are caught in the fire scenario up above. Would you be strong enough and have enough endurance to save yourself and your family, or peter out halfway through because for the past few months you were too lazy and "didn't have the time" to workout. Obviously there are many more factors to this then just being in shape. But ask yourself this question. Is my body and mind ready to survive what life throws at me?
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