Why do you train?

Why do you train?

Is it to look better?

Is it to improve your health and longevity?

Is it to get as strong as possible?

Is it because you love the aspect of competing with others in strength/physique sports?

The reason you train can change over your lifting career as you go through different stages. When you’re young you might start training to get better at a sport or to improve your body to get the girl in your math class. This can be seen as extrinsic motivation. Eventually, you fall in love with training and develop a love for the process of constantly showing up and putting in the work. This can be seen as intrinsic motivation.

Extrinsic motivation can be defined as reward-driven behavior.

Intrinsic motivation can be defined as internally driven behavior from the desire to do a task that you find interesting.

A commonality I’ve seen with many of the clients I’ve worked with is they’re intrinsically motivated to train. I’m by no means saying being extrinsically motivated to train isn’t useful, but I do find that sometimes extrinsic motivation isn’t enough at times to keep you locked in. Goals are important to have as without goals what are you working towards right? I have goals and all of my clients have goals for their training, but I find that it’s the intrinsic motivation that keeps a client locked in during the deep stages of a diet or to show up to the gym after having a long shift at work.

We know that one of the most important aspect of someone’s long term success within lifting is consistency. I find that intrinsically motivated people are also very consistent with their training and nutrition.

You might be asking yourself, so what does all this have to do with why you train? To that, I say if social media didn’t exist or you weren’t actively pursuing a goal would you still show up every day to the gym and put in the work? If you can say yes then more than likely you’ll be successful through the easy and the hard times of your lifting career.

I'm quite intrinsically motivated to train, I love the process of continually showing up and putting in the reps to eventually build-up to the goal I’m chasing.

Are you primarily intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to train? Give this a thought and send me a DM on social or drop a comment down below with your thoughts.