Photo courtesy of d_vdm

The adage of improving what's inside yourself to help you with things that are outside of you is a central component to the self help way of thinking. "You cannot love someone until you love yourself," - is an expression you have probably heard thousands of time. Personal development these days seem to focus solely on improving your inner game - your mental and spiritual health. For a lot of you, this is the reason you got into self improvement in the first place. It was a quest for more knowledge, more information. You wanted to understand - to make sense of it all.

The two components of your "self"

What's often neglected or taken for granted is the importance of your physical health in helping you on your spiritual journey. You, as a human being are composed of a non-physical component and a physical component. Your non-physical component is your spirit or soul. Your physical component is your body, which in turn is composed of your mental and physical side. You may have heard of these three aspects as "mind, body and soul." There is an interplay between these three elements, that combine to create who you are as a human "being." This collaboration between the two components (non-physical and physical) of your being harmonize with each other, like an orchestra to create the symphony of your life. Think of the conductor as your mental controller or operator, the orchestra players as your physical body and the music as your spiritual soul.

What would be the results of an orchestra without a conductor? Or a conductor without an orchestra? What is the purpose of an orchestra if not to play the most beautiful music it can? The balance and harmony between the physical and non-physical components can be thought of as a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. One needs the other just as equally. Together, they combine to create something that is stronger than if they were separate pieces.

The importance of physical fitness

Now, like an orchestra each piece needs to be in their best shape in order to produce the best quality music. While building up your mental and spiritual side, don't neglect your musicians (your physical health). Keeping it in optimal shape will allow your "self" to function to its fullest potential. To keep your physical body in top shape there are only two areas to focus on: diet/nutrition and exercise. As stated in my previous articles on managing stress, your body grows as a result of the "input" that you take in. In short what you put into your body needs to be output. You can either output this in an unhealthy way or a healthy way. Exercise is a healthy way of outputting the energy that you take in as nutrients through your diet. An unhealthy way of outputting energy is sitting on the couch watching t.v. What happens here is that the energy you take in through your diet instead of being converted to physical energy is stored as excess fat.

Develop a physical fitness routine

As part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, it is important to have a physical fitness plan. Physical fitness is not something that should be considered a luxury or an addition to your life. Physical fitness is a component in your overall make-up of your "being" and therefore should be given the proper attention it deserves. Many people look at working-out as a forced evil. Like taxes - they only do it because they have to. Often, forced to exercise after the discovery of an unwanted health condition such as diabetes or high blood pressure. The best treatment for any medical problem is prevention. With this in mind, exercise should be incorporated into your daily routine. It needs to be a part of your lifestyle.

Now remember, the two areas of physical fitness are diet/nutrition and exercise. Exercise can be further broken down into: weight-training and sports or activities. These three areas make up a good physical fitness routine. We will talk about diet/nutrition in future articles, for now lets take a closer look at weight-training and sports or physical activity.

Weight-training

A critical part to any fitness regiment is weight-training. No matter what sport/activity you participate in, a proper weight-training program will improve your game tremendously. Think of Tiger Woods. Golf may be considered a sport where weight-training is considered ineffective. However, Tiger Woods incorporates weight-training into his routine and we all know how successful he is. Many pro golfers have now utilized the benefits of weight-training because of the success Tiger Woods has had with it.

Building muscle is not the sole domain of body-builders. Many people have the "Arnold Schwarzenegger" syndrome: "I don't want to lift weights because I don't want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger." This is true especially for girls. They are afraid of developing huge muscles. They want to have a slim, toned figure. However, women lack testosterone, an important hormone in the development of muscle size and shape. No matter how much you train girls, you or no one for that matter, will ever come close to looking like the Terminator.

Some benefits of weight training include:

• Increased strength.
• Aesthetics. Who doesn't want a nice, strong, slim and toned physique?
• Increase your body's metabolism Increased muscle leads to an increase in your body's metabolism. I won't quote stats because I believe they can be easily misleading, but suffice to say that the your body uses more energy to conserve muscle than it does fat. The more muscle you have, the more calories your body needs.
• Lower you body fat %. Replacing fat cells with muscle cells will lower your body fat %. The extra muscle burns more calories thereby burning even more fat. A nice cycle to have.
• Health benefits. Positive affect on insulin resistance, resting metabolism, blood pressure, body fat and gastrointestinal transit time, factors that are linked to illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. (Source: weightlossresources.co.uk
• Lower your risk of injury. Stronger muscles equals stronger tendons and ligaments. This reduces the risk of sprains, tears and breaks.
• Improved recovery. Healthier individuals recover faster from surgeries and physical ailments than their non-healthy counterparts. Think of Lance Armstrong. Do you think someone who wasn't in top physical shape and health as Lance was would be able to enjoy the same type of outcome?

Sport or physical activity

In addition to weight-training, playing a sport or physical activity is the other component of your physical health routine. This is the fun stuff - the play time. Pick a sport or activity that you enjoy doing. Swimming, running, basketball, football, baseball, martial-arts, dancing, yoga, snowboarding, hiking, bicycling, etc. The different possibilities are endless. The importance of a sport or activity is to allow you to express yourself through a physical outlet. Think of it as "physical art." It is the creative self-expression of who you are physically. Everybody should have a sport or activity that they enjoy doing. Look at how expressive kids are with their bodies. They love to play. Sometimes it is impossible to keep up with them. The other benefit of a sport is to provide a means of cardiovascular training. Cardiovascular training is important for stamina and improving your cardiovascular health among other things.

You can see the benefits of developing these two aspects of weight-training and sport/activity into your physical fitness routine. Your physical health plays an important role in your overall health. If your orchestra players are out of shape, what kind of an effect will that have on the quality of music that you can play?