Are you Exercising or Training?

At a glance both exercising and training are similar however there is a big subtlety between them that could alter the course of your athletic trajectory.

Exercising can be defined as movement that requires physical effort to maintain or increase your health and fitness. Exercise raises your heart rate above baseline providing a host of both physical and mental benefits to maintain our overall health. Those who exercise will often do similar exercise session day after day or week after week. Often times the underlying goal is to go as hard as possible and to burn as many calories as one can each session. At the end of each exercise session you're tired and feel accomplished having exerted yourself physically. This is great for starting a fitness routine or improving physical health in the short term however if you have long term athletic goals you are doing yourself a disservice. Maintaining the same exercise routine or going as hard as possible each session will lead to either burnout or a plateau in your progress, with your goal forever looming. This is where the concept of training is useful.

Training is also physical movement but it is done with a specific purpose or a goal in mind. Training involves exercising in a structured format to measure progress and performance. Every training session has a purpose that strives to help reach the end goal. Training is deliberate and methodical where as exercise is unstructured and nonsystematic. When you exercise you are likely to only think about a single session at a time where as training you have a road map to get to your end goal which is called the training plan. Each exercise session is a piece of the puzzle in the training plan helping you get from point A to B. Training is exercising with a purpose and is essential if you want long term athletic progress.

Ultimately the choice of exercising vs training comes down to one thing, your end goal. If your goal is to start, maintain or slightly increase physical health then exercising is fantastic for that. If your goal is to progress athletically or make big strides in your physical health then training is the way to go. The intentionality of training allows you to make progress and improvements a lot faster. Think about the exercise that you've been doing lately and what you desire to accomplish for your physical health or as an athlete. Am I exercising or am I training?