Intentional Exercise

I've been exercising everyday for the past six months. My husband and I go for for a run twice a week, some days we do yoga, and other days we do functional strength training.

I love those three exercises.

Running helps me improve my stamina, endurance, and cardiovascular health. Yoga helps me improve balance, mobility, flexibility, and strength. And functional strength training helps me perform daily activities more easily and in better, safer ways.

Ultimately, I want my exercise to not only keep me strong and healthy, but to make my everyday life easier, and my future more secure.

By working on my stamina and endurance, I want to be able to keep running, to keep going, when crisis hits. To be able to overcome challenges when they come, and still have the energy afterwards.

By working on mobility today, I hope to be able to perform activities well even when I get old. To be able to walk everyday without body pains. To be able to reach for things from the cupboards. To avoid stumbling and serious injury.

And by doing functional strength training, I want to be able to do my day-to-day physical activities with ease. And grace.

For me, it's not about the heaviest weight you can lift, how fast you can run, the muscles you build and the figure you get. It's about how those exercises can help you live the life you want—whether it's having a healthy heart, being ready for challenges, having mobility in old age, or being effortless in performing daily activities.

Exercise keeps us healthy, physically and mentally, but it can elevate so much more of how we live our lives.