What is Optimal Health & Fitness?
What is health? Is it simply absence of disease or is it vitality, libido, enthusiasm, and energy? What is fitness? Is it simply the ability to take a walk, do a push-up, or is it climbing over a wall, jumping, swimming or running as hard as you can for a minute?
At Formal Fitness Training we think there are three primary versions of health and fitness (Surviving, Climbing, Thriving). In the following paragraphs we will describe what each one is and the minimum requirements to be in each, from there you can decide whether you want to be more or stay where you are! The choice is yours.
Surviving – Relative absence of disease but very minimal activity, nutritional adherence, and potentially a life of minimal sleep and maximal stress. (60% of the world)
Climbing – Absence of disease with moderate activity, moderate nutritional adherence, and the attempt to minimize stress and get a decent amount of sleep. (27% of the world)
Thriving – Complete absence of disease with optimal activity, nutritional adherence, and the constant pursuit of stress reduction and optimal amounts of sleep. (less than 3% of the world)
Now these are the three main examples, and you can also see two other possibilities (don’t care 10%, excessively focused .0001%) neither of those are healthy either in our opinion. **Percentages are opinion based**
Surviving people are going to eventually see problems due to their disregard for health & fitness. Eventually a poor diet, minimal sleep, maximal stress and avoiding exercise will catch up to you. For that reason you should aim to transition from surviving to the climbing group as soon as possible. A good starting point would be some general recommendations. Walk more, eat additional fruits and vegetables, perhaps meditate a few times per week & improve your sleep quantity and quality. Climbing people are those who are actively trying to figure it out. Perhaps they walk seven to eight thousand steps per day, get six to seven hours of sleep, perhaps they have a personal trainer and they eat organic food whenever possible. The climbing group has a good foundation and if they find the right coach or the right mindset they could potentially move into the thriving group over time. The pursuit of the thriving group has no downside in our opinion, though many will fail to consistently reach this level without also working on motivation and discipline. The thriving people are those who consistently and repetitively (like clockwork) walk ten thousand or more steps per day, get seven to nine hours of quality sleep, eat organic and minimally processed foods most of the time while avoiding excess alcohol, stress, all while focusing on additional ways to improve their health and fitness.
Climbing and thriving people are the people you are going to want to find and associate with if you want to improve your level of fitness and health. Once you are able to move onto the next level it will be your turn to ‘pay it forward’ which means finding someone who is where you were and helping them achieve their next level. It is important to not push to hard while being supportive and understanding. For some it may take months to achieve a new level, and for others it may take years or decades.
If you want to have a great long life with the absence of disease, the ability to do things and achieve things, while keeping up with your nieces, nephews, kids, or friends and family it is important to start now.
We are always here for your!
~Coach Mike
Formal Fitness Training
Michael Hartman
My mission is to give personal training participants a safe and effective workout designed specifically for their goals. Dealing with many sports injuries over the years taught me how to come back stronger every time. The competition is with yourself... Strive to bring out your best self and get better every day!
