Top 5 compliments I’ve gotten on my physique in reverse order.
Number 5: Just last week as Kyle and I walked through Madison Square Park on our way back from breakfast to the gym a young guy with a lovely foreign accent came up to us and said “you guys are looking big!” and walked off. Acts of kindness still prevail in New York City.
Number 4: During a weekend at the waterpark with my family I was walking back to our chairs from the wave pool, still a bit wet and with a towel around my waist. As I approached, my wife looked me up and down and said, “between the bald head, the beard and the muscles you look like Zeus”. Thirty years of knowing each other and she still knows exactly what to say.
Number 3: Back when I was working in advertising I was taking a flight back home from Chicago after presenting to a client. As we were standing around waiting to board, a guy came up to me sheepishly and asked if he had seen me fight in a UFC event the previous weekend.
Number 2: I was sitting in the urologists office answering some questions when the doctor asked my wife to leave for a moment. He shut the door, looked me in the face and asked “are you taking any anabolic steroids?” When I told him I was not, he paused and said, “you can tell me if you are.”
Number 1: This happened at a Poliquin seminar. Charles Poliquin is a legendary strength coach and one of my early mentors. Charles was also fanatical about training arms. We were practicing skin fold caliper readings (where you pinch skin and measure it with a caliper in order to determine body fat distribution and percentage) and my friend Jose was trying to get the reading on the back of my arm. Charles walked over, took the caliper out of Jose’s hand and said, “because Dan has very big triceps…..” I can’t tell you what happened after that because I blacked out with joy.
As ridiculous as those stories are, I've realized something over the years. None of those compliments are actually why I still train.
Training (for me, and hopefully most people) is about a lot more than aesthetics. Health, performance, injury prevention, strength and a whole host of other benefits come as a result of a consistent and thoughtful exercise program.
And, for sure, in the past too much had been made about the visual outcomes that training provided. The first few times I stepped into the gym as a teenager there was no other consideration outside of how lifting weights would make arms, shoulders and chest look.
Sure, we were all impressed when Michael Schwartzberg could chest press the entire stack when we were in the Junior High School weight room. But we would have much rather preferred to have Jimmy Anson’s arms which were remarkably developed for a fourteen year old.
But, in my meathead opinion, the pendulum has currently swung too far the other way. The popularity of the body positivity movement of the last few years has taught us that we should be grateful and accepting of our bodies regardless of their faults and imperfections. And I love that idea. Accepting that having cellulite or less than perfect biceps insertions should not make you ashamed or angry at your body.
But the opposite is also true. You should be allowed to appropriately flaunt the aspects of your physique that you are proud of as well. Whether that’s a fitted t-shirt or finally showing up to the beach in a two piece, there should be nothing wrong with leaning into the positive aspects of your physicality.
Because doing so is an expression of one of the actual greatest things the gym delivers (outside of a prominent biceps vein). And that is confidence.
When you take control of your training your confidence in your looks might improve. And while I’ve been taking a mostly tongue-in-cheek view on that so far in this blog, it’s actually not a small thing.
Studies show that while most things that people think will make them happier do not (like a larger salary or a boat) physical self improvement actually does lead to long term improvements in happiness and personal satisfaction.
But the increase in confidence is not limited to how we look in booty shorts.
An increase in confidence of your physical capabilities, such as how far you can run or how strong you become will also bleed into how you carry and feel about yourself.
Consistent training can deeply affect your value system. People who take care of their health and physical well-being are not only desirable to strangers who might admire their glowing skin or giant delts, they are upholding a covenant they have made with themselves to protect and nurture the very vessel that allows them to interact with the world.
Let me restate that without the weird, biblical-seeming terms here: taking care of your body shows you that you value yourself. And that is a message you want to send yourself as often as possible. Your daily actions are a constant reminder of what you believe you are worth.
Last week on the subway, as I waited for the door to open at my stop, I noticed someone touch the back of my arm.
“Probably just an accident,” I silently thought.
But ten seconds later it happened again.
“Who could be so forward as to just grab my arm on the subway…twice?!?!”
I was really feeling myself as we pulled into the stop. I took two steps out of the car before looking back to see who this bold stranger might be.
Turns out, it was a blind woman and the grabbing of my arm probably had a lot more to do with her orienting herself and keeping her balance and a lot less to do with the irresistible prominence of my triceps.
Which brings me back to my point (and, hopefully, deflates my ego a bit). There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the visual improvements that training brings. But there’s so much more to it than that.
It keeps you healthy, improves your capability, sky rockets your confidence and consistently reminds us of our values and self-worth. And, in the appropriate situation, both metaphorically and literally help you support the people around you.