I did something I should not have done this morning:
I read the comments on a Facebook news article link.
It was an article about whether gyms and salons could reopen, and while many of the comments were more thoughtful, many of them said things like this:
“Why? So people can look nice in their caskets?”
“They are so unnecessary. You have legs, walk or jog.”
“I’ve always thought people who paid to exercise were losers anyway.”
“Where body fluids are swapped for the most shallow and vain reasons. Good luck with that.”
The last one made me almost throw my phone. 🤯
Fitness—and gyms—are not merely about looking good. Yes, the #1 reason people decide to get fit is because they want to look better. That’s not shallow nor vain. The process of losing body fat, adding muscle, and watching your body transform often creates a better sense of self-worth, boosts self-confidence, and helps people become better versions of themselves all-around. They learn that they can accomplish tough things, that they can fail but try again, and these lessons translate into people who know how to do tough things in all areas of life, in their careers, in their personal relationships, and in their friendships.
Fit people are mentally sharp, emotionally tough, and experienced in using their grit to do great things.
That aside, the quest for fitness is always about more than beauty.
Being fit changes the inside of your body, too. Fit people have stronger bones, lower body fat levels overall, less visceral fat, better blood oxygen levels, better lung capacity, better immune systems, better resting heart rates, better physical work capacity, and better long-term health markers like blood sugar levels and cholesterol levels.
Fit people survive pandemics.
So of course, Fit House has been closed for over a month, but we are still training our clients. They still want to look and feel great, and they still want to be strong and healthy in a time when being strong and healthy is even more important.
That includes our met con clients.
Even during a quarantine, we are still running our metabolic conditioning classes. And while we talk a lot on our social media pages about keeping up with strength training during this pandemic, we also need to keep up with our conditioning.
See, many of the things that strength training builds are enhanced through conditioning. Combining strength training and conditioning is always a good idea, even at times like these.
Conditioning helps to:
- Improve blood flow, bringing more nutrients to the body’s tissues
- Improve oxygen delivery and exchange at the cellular level
- Improve cardiovascular health
- Lower resting heart rate so the sympathetic nervous system does less at rest
- Increase work capacity so you can recover from strenuous labor faster
- Increase recovery of non-aerobic energy systems
- Improve your ability to create energy efficiently
The benefits, though, for your every day life might interest you more:
- Trains your body to do more, so you can become a better lifter
- Places a huge energy demand on your body, burning calories fast
- Elevates your metabolic rate for 16-24 hours afterward
- Torches body fat as a result
Met con turns you into a lean, mean, efficient, fitness machine—and all of the benefits and improvements it causes are precisely the things that will help your body fight off illness.
One of the casualties of the gym shutdown, though, might be your accountability.
No gym = no scheduled met con classes = no conditioning happening.
And no, walking from your home office to your living room to your kitchen isn’t the kind of “conditioning” that will give you the benefits and improvements listed above.
So when we moved our strength training programs to at-home programs, we moved our met con classes to virtual classes, too—because people need accountability just as much as they need experts to design their training programs for them. (Another reason gyms aren’t superficial. We’re trained experts in programming, nutrition, and several related subjects. So 😛 all you Facebook trolls who think gyms are vain and just for meatheads.)
We’re now wrapping up the last week of a 3-week virtual met con class session, and it has been both FUN and EFFECTIVE for our clients.
- They get their conditioning workout in.
- They get all the fitness and fat loss benefits.
- They get to SEE other people and their trainer.
- They get a set appointment time and accountability to make sure it gets done.
I do met cons on my own. I’m THAT person.
But most of you are not. And that’s OK. That’s exactly why we moved met cons online. Conditioning is still an integral part of your overall health, even more so during a pandemic, where your activity levels are likely below normal in addition to the lack of scheduled work outs.
Having met con to look forward to each Tuesday has helped keep me and our participants fit, happy, and socially connected.
I don’t think there’s anything at all vain or shallow about that.
During this pandemic, we have moved all our training to at-home programs. Strength training AND virtual met con classes are all available, and you don’t need to be a current Fit House client to join in. Contact us for more information.
About the author
Kristen Perillo
Kristen Perillo is a teacher by day, trainer and nutrition coach by night. She's also a Star Wars nerd, writer, dog (and cat) mom, peanut butter junkie, and Seinfeld devotee. Fitness has done nothing but make her life better, and she is privileged to show other people that it will do the same for them.
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