Be Strong, First
Strength impacts your life far beyond the gym
Imagine boarding a train in Zurich, Switzerland, bound for France. You have a medium-sized backpack with you…it probably weighs 28 pounds…not heavy by backpacking standards.
You move to hoist your backpack into the overhead bin, get about 50% of the way there, and it won’t go up any further. Your tour guide (a guy who is about your height) leaps to your rescue. Without a word, he grabs your bag, tosses it in the overhead without a thought, and has a seat.
This happened to me a number of years ago, and the memory of it still smarts. I was grateful and humiliated at the same time.
When the gym doesn’t translate into real life.
How could I not lift my own bag?
I went to the gym all the time. I was 24 years old. I ran, I took group fitness classes, I…I…I…I wasn’t strong enough to lift my own bag up to put it away.
A hard lesson to learn.
My entire life has been dedicated to being fit, active and healthy. It has not always been about being strong.
Truth be told, it was more about looking great, feeling great and fitting comfortably into my favorite jeans while having fun and not feeling like I was…
