Will Power and the Density of the Exercise Experience

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Push-ups, sit-ups, jumps, bench press, squats, endurance, speed and other measures of fitness are good indicators of health and our prospects for living longer. However, the power of our will is a more important measure of our prospects for living a good life. Putting the horse of our will power before the cart of our fitness we realize all of our improvements on measures of fitness are surpassed by the action-initiating and persevering power of our will. Thus, training the power of our will to be stronger than the opposing physical, psychological, and social forces we confront in exercise and life is an essential and perhaps overlooked benefit of exercise.

Knowledge is power. From the density of our experiences of being and becoming mentally and physically stronger than the forces of our fears and unknowns, as well as the worldly forces bearing down on us, we acquire new experiential knowledge and the power of our will exponentially increases. These experiences are born from the depths of our energy reserves, the full scope and magnitude of forces we exert applying our talents and skills as we explore, experiment, and confront worldly forces and the challenges they impose.

The density of experience that comes with exercise is vital to the development of our power to will and there is no time in life when these experiences are more important than during childhood. At any age, exercise demands the death defying mental and physical strength to alter our body’s steady state of resting activity to a working state of confronting, striving and overcoming opposing environmental forces that test our mental and physical limits. A child who learns to exercise is mentally and physically trained for life; trained to cope, assertively confront, and strive to overcome the opposing forces inherent to living in a world of forces. At any age, there is nothing more empowering, invigorating, and intoxicating than experiencing the ability of our body to respond to the power of our will.



Stephen J. Almada, Ed. D