Why Colin DeWaay Training and not Colin DeWaay Fitness? It’s a question I’ve been asked a few times. Most people tend to put fitness at the end of their name. It makes sense, fitness is a word that can be used to describe just about anything regarding, well, fitness. Just look at some of the synonyms for fitness: good health, strength, vigor, athleticism, toughness, muscularity, good condition and good shape.
Fitness in a sense describes many of the outcomes people have when set out to change something about their body. So when you use the term fitness, it can be used as a way that shows you deliver results. Most people, after all, have the goal of being “fit.” I have no problems with the word fitness, in fact I like it a lot. However, I chose to go with Colin DeWaay Training over Colin DeWaay Fitness for several reasons.
1) The physical form of training is by far my favorite part about health and fitness. I love weight training and I love training others. While there are so many things that go into fitness, the physical form of weight training will always be numero uno for me. Plus lets be honest, while people can gain and lose weight from diet alone (granted that’s far from the most effective way to do it) you aren’t building any muscle if you aren’t doing some form of resistance training.
2) The physical form of training not only trains your muscles but it trains your whole body. Getting stronger is not merely building bigger muscles. Although a strong body will generally lead to a more muscular body the two are not always hand in hand. Strength is built by neurological adaptations. Essentially the brain signals your motor neurons to contract the muscle fibers during training. This is why especially early on in training strength will go up without any visible increase in muscle mass. You lift weights and your body responds to this stimulus by getting stronger to make sure it can handle the extra load next time it’s required to do so. This is mostly neural and comes via the central and peripheral nervous system. Without carrying on too long about the science behind it (which I will do in the future) basically you aren’t just training your muscles, you are training your entire nervous system.
3) When you train your body you are also training your mind. Exercise is not only good for your body but it also affects your mood, alertness, vitality and your over all feeling of well-being. When you train your body and start to notice changes you begin to realize how incredible you feel. This has a carry over effect into everything in life. Your confidence rises everywhere, whether it be in the gym, at your job, out in social situations, etc. You are able to think more clearly, funtion at a higher level and perform better everywhere in life.
In fact exercise has been shown to be as good if not a better form of treatment and prevention for depression than antidepressant drugs. (1) A study out of Duke even showed that while after four months of either an antidepressant or exercise the results were equally effective, after a follow up was done 10 months later the exercise group showed lower rates of depression relapse and participants who reported to be engaged in regular exercise during the follow up period were more than 50% less likely to be depressed compared to those who did not exercise. (2)
Essentially when it comes down to it we are constantly training ourselves with everything we do regarding fitness. We train ourselves how to nourish our bodies, how to perform, how to handle life circumstances, heck we train ourselves how to train. Everything we do is a form of training, and training leads us to become better versions of ourselves as a whole. That’s why I chose to go with Colin DeWaay Training.
