In my opinion, training is an education in itself. It teaches you great things about yourself and even reveals your flaws, so you can work on and improve them. Many lessons can be learnt in the gym.
Hey life’s about learning. With that said lets get to the good stuff.
Time for an education in iron.
Lesson 1: Discipline
There are few better ways that I know of to develop discipline than heaving and hoisting heavy iron. Now discipline isn’t a word people like to hear or use because it sounds hard. Well if you want to get better at something you’ve got to be disciplined. When you train with the iron consistently over the days, weeks and months you begin to instil discipline into your DNA. You begin to enjoy the feeling of clanging and banging iron, that feeling keeps you disciplined. Hence the reason I view the gym as a damn discipline powerhouse.
It’s worth noting that strict discipline is required for you to stick with your routine and actually take the effort and time to train.
Lesson 2: Persistence
My definition of persistence is the ability to never quit until you’re satisfied and then go above and beyond that. You’ll no doubt develop persistence in the gym. Think about it. Every time you lift, week-by-week, month-by-month, you’re building something.
Constantly striving to create and realise a goal. Continually reaching and improving. Not giving in and wallowing in defeat. Instead coming back again and again, hungry for more. That’s persistence.
Lesson 3: Courage
Whether you’re about to complete a set of heavy-ass squats or deadlifts it takes courage to make the decision to go balls to the wall, up the intensity and lift heavy. Some people lack the courage to truly challenge themselves, test their metal and see what they’re really made of. When you first start lifting you might be scared to go hard and heavy, maybe the fear of passing out on a bench or losing your lunch doesn’t appeal to you. (It happens).
Ultimately there’ll come a point when you’ll have the urge to train intensely. you’ll grow stronger and your courage will develop. As it does you’ll find yourself lifting poundage you thought you couldn’t.
Lesson 4: Hard work
If you’ve been lifting for sometime you’ll know this one well. Training develops your appreciation for hard work. Lifting intensely builds up your tolerance for hard work. It conditions you for it. Your training should be far from easy. (If you’re doing it right). It shouldn’t feel like a breeze. If it’s too easy you need to up the ante. If you go to the gym to screw around, you’re just wasting your time and robbing yourself of potential merits.
Lesson 5: Concentration
When you’re in the gym visualise what you’re trying to accomplish. As you begin to visualise your goal you’re developing your concentration. Overtime your concentration and focus will continually develop and you’ll be able to shut everything else around you out and just be in the moment. When you see nothing else but your goal, your chances of achieving it goes up dramatically. That’s the power of concentration and having pinpoint focus.
Lesson 6: Understanding
I think this is probably the most important thing you can learn in the gym. The ability to understand yourself. Training is a form of meditation. It’s your time away from work commitments and other social activities. Through training you’ll learn and begin to understand what your physical limitations are. As you begin to understand your weaknesses you can formulate strategies to improve on them. Turning former weaknesses into strengths.
You can take and apply each of these incredible characteristics to any aspect of your life that you want to achieve success in.
Class is over.
All that’s left to do is to get your butt down to the gym and start hitting that iron.
FOCUS AND DEDICATION
Interesting read. Exactly the kind of lessons you can take home from the gym. I would add training builds character. I mean there’s nothing like seeing your body change over time. I know mine has. Once again an Insightful article, I’m Looking out for the next one.
Great point about character building. Definitely true. You’re 100% right, seeing and feeling the changes in your body and strength does wonders for your confidence levels.
Whooah I really miss your site brother! A very strong typhoon devastated my country so i need to secure some things first. Anyway, you always right for what you said. I can honestly said that gym save my life and taught me all the things that you’ve said and most of all gym taught me on how appreciated small things that comes in my way especially on my body. Thank you for this wonderful post brother keep up the good work.!
Great to hear from you brother. I’ve seen the damage and devastation caused by the typhoon. My community is gathering funds to assist the people greatly affected.
Coming back to the post, I 100% hands down believe that you can truly take away lessons from the gym and carry them over to improve other aspects of your life.
Brother you truly grasp the essence of training, in the sense that it’s not just about the physicality. There’s a lot more than meets the eye. Amazing stuff, keep it up brother. Your comments are inspiring.
Great to hear that brother and I am really grateful to all the people around the world who gather funds to help my country and now I can honestly said that my faith about humanity are now fully restored. It’s really life changing to see different nation unite for helping each other, and I am really glad that all people here are starting to feel your helps and they are now feel relieved. Thank You so much people especially on you brother!
On the other hand GYM also taught me to be humble as well for my achievement, right now instead of being boastful to my new physique, I try to help others by telling them the right way
for their fat loss training as far as I know and I’m glad that i can see them doing my advice and see a substantial results. And also, GYM will be the right place to meet different people from politician, actor, businessman, etc. and you can definitely see how the winners treat their body.
And lastly GYM will truly help you to build power. Power of believing to your self that you can achieve and build something that no one can. Again Thank You so much brother and I am reall sorry for my long comment!
No need to apologise brother, it’s quite alright. Always happy to help. That’s my nature. If I can help make someones life better, I consider that doing my part to help shape a happier world.
Excellent points about who you meet in the gym. You never know who you’ll meet. Definitely many successful people can be found training in gyms.
I hate people that harp on, bragging about themselves. They use their ego as leverage to belittle and make others feel inferior. They may have accomplished a lot, but it all comes to nothing if you lose respect.
Bragging and ego boosting is for attention seeking losers, who really want people to look up to and respect them. In reality that kinda makes them the inferior ones.
You’re a one of a kind guy brother. You’ve got an excellent mindset for life.