Training Beyond Vanity

The Benefits Of Exercise Go Far Deeper Than The Way We Look. From Enhancing Our Health And Wellbeing To Improving Our Confidence Levels And Work Productivity, The Advantages Are Endless.

- Amelia Ricci

As a coach, I constantly relay the non-visual training benefits to my clients who are embarking on bikini-competition preparation or body transformation journeys. However, when I ask them why they are doing it, many still answer me with the adage ‘to look better’.

A new lifestyle and exercise routine provides you with a foundation from which you can draw purpose, motivation, and a new drive for all areas in your life. Your mental image of what you want to look like is a powerful tool, and this will give you great motivation, but what are you going to do if your new physique takes a little longer than expected?

No matter how motivated or focused you may be, chances are you may never obtain the body you have in mind, and if you do it’s possible you may not get the satisfaction you imagined from staring at your ideal body in the mirror every day.

Alternatively, if you believe that by creating your ideal body you will get a boyfriend or more friends or social media followers, what happens when you have achieved the body goals (and maybe everything else has not followed)? The point is that if your focus is based purely on looks alone, you are simply not setting yourself up for long-term success.

In my years of training I have learnt firsthand that there are so many positive outcomes from living a healthy lifestyle apart from ‘looking good’. I am not dismissing the fact that increased muscle and less body fat is great — it is! I am, however, highlighting that fitness modelling and body transformation success is so multifaceted that to focus solely on the superficial reasons would mean missing out on a whole other world of reward and benefit.