Two Questions

Today we share two photos. The first is of a “Globo Gym”. A large chain gym with an ocean of machines and equipment. The other is of a session in one of the rooms at our gym. There is a stark contrast here. The first gym prides itself on what it has, we pride ourselves on what we know. The first focuses on memberships, we focus on results.

I’m going to talk about two questions today. These two questions are two questions that define success for an individual in these gyms. The thing is, the two questions are different depending on which gym you are in.

The questions of success at gym #1 the “Globo Gym”
How do you look?
What do you weigh?

These are the primary metrics that gym #1 is going to look at to determine if you are successful or not. (They’d prefer not to measure anything, in fact it’s better if you never show up at all anyway). But, let’s assume for the sake of this discussion they were actually interested in your “success”. They will focus on two things. What you weigh, and how you look. If you loose weight, and look a certain way, then you are successful. Unfortunately, your fitness is not even considered. Even within these parameters very few people are “successful” in these types of gyms.

The questions of success in our gym.
How do you feel?
What can you do?

These two questions meet our measures of fitness. It goes well beyond this, which is why we record so much information, but these two questions sum up success. Do you feel better than you did a month ago? Do you have more energy? Are you more motivated in other aspects of your life? Have you improved your technique on a variety of skills? Can you accomplish something that you could not accomplish a year ago? Can you move more weight in less time than you could previously? Weight loss and looking better are additional markers of improvement in fitness, but we see them as nice side effects, and not something to be focused on. What are your goals? What do you define as success? Do you need to rethink your definition of success? Tell us about it.