Staying Fit : A Lifestyle for a Fortified Mind

Greetings, readers!
In today's fast-paced world, it's easy to neglect our health and fitness. But this doesn't change the importance of staying fit and healthy. Feeling good on the inside is the secret to happy and fulfilling life. A balanced approach to this can transform your overall well-being.

Why Fitness Matters

Staying fit has benefits not only limited to appearance but complete holistic growth.

It helps you become more disciplined in your life, which is the key to success in any field. Furthermore, it fortifies you mentally, since you are fighting your mind every single day to do something consistently. Once you have that mindset, there is no stopping you.

Physical benefits

Exercising regularly helps you in getting healthier and more fit, and starting to look and feel better. Along with this, It lowers the risk of illness and gives a boost to your immunity system. 

Mental benefits

There is immense mental growth in consistently exercising to stay fit. Helps in gaining that confidence in your own skin, increases focus in everything you do and teaches you to push the limits. All while reducing stress, anxiety and depression. Regular exercise can also boost your mood and improve cognitive function.

Emotional and Spiritual benefits

The art of staying fit is a powerful tool to connect with your soul, body and mind and develop this profound sense of self-awareness and peace. It boosts your self-esteem and improves your intellectual capabilities. 

My Calisthenics Journey: A Fitness Odyssey

I, myself, have been working out since 2021. I am a calisthenics athlete and this journey of 3 years has taught me a lot about life. I started this journey as a calisthenics enthusiast and used to workout in the vicinity of my home and open gyms that were in parks. After about 2 years I also started going to the gym. I am also a trainer now who tries to help anyone who wants to pursue this enlightening path of fitness.

 

Working out has changed my life forever and has taught me a significant amount of things. Focusing on becoming fit and staying fit helped me grow not only physically but also mentally, emotionally, spiritually and even socially. It is amazing how you can transform your entire self just through sheer determination and discipline. 

Consistency is heavily important when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle, you have to pay attention to your body and consistently work out. Failing and getting up again, persevering through everything is essential. We have to push our limits continuously to keep growing, which is quite beautiful. There is immense beauty in pain. :)

Advice for Athletes

1) Discipline: Staying disciplined and consistent are things that I can't stress on enough. Being regular, even if it's just 15 minutes, can change your life. You can always take out at least 15-30 minutes of your daily schedule to exercise.

2) Prioritize Nutrition: Food is fuel for your body. This is of utmost importance that with regular workouts you have a balanced diet which is rich in all the nutrients. You may choose calorie surplus or calorie deficit as per your goal. Combining this with protein surplus is the way to go. I would personally recommend taking all nutrients from home cooked meals and not supplements. I did the same while being a vegetarian.

3) Start with Small Goals: Goal oriented training is necessary for efficient progress. When you achieve small goals it gives you the pride and pushes you to work harder. Gradually increase the intensity and remain consistent.

4) Quality over Quantity: Remember to focus on your form when you're working out. Rather than getting more number of repetitions, get more muscle activation, more mind to muscle connection and deeper stretch in the eccentric part of the exercise. Doing slow and controlled repetitions in both concentric and eccentric parts of the motion is the key. Correct form also helps in preventing injuries which is quite important.

5) Reaching Failure: Feeling extreme fatigue and reaching failure after each set is essential. Looking at it from a psychological perspective, we develop our body when it realizes it needs more to perform.

That is how we developed endurance, because we used to run after prey for hours until it got tired in ancestral times. Now from a scientific stand point, our muscles get microscopic tears when we workout and when those tears are repaired by our body using protein synthesis, they become better and stronger. Both these perspectives require you to push past the bodily limits.

6) Appreciating Change: In order to not hit a plateau, which demotivates a lot of athletes and even makes many quit, you need to continually change your workout regime and diet plans. Changing these every few months will help you progressively overload and will heavily increase the efficiency of muscle gaining. (Changes such as incorporating new exercises, increasing the weight or resistance, or changing the number of sets and repetitions).

7) Listen to Your Body: Pay attention to the needs of your body. Stay hydrated and rest well. 

Conclusion

Don't forget! Small, consistent steps can lead to significant results. I am very emotionally connected to this journey of mine. Thus I am trying to spread the word and getting everyone to reap the benefits of this and transform themselves. Cheers to becoming the best version of ourselves. :)