From the ERE book:
I see a lot of folks on here talking about exercising and general fitness, but I'm more interested in what sport(s) folks are doing.Physiological goals for someone aspiring to be a Renaissance man are to:
[...]
- be able to compete in local sports competitions (does not include jogging/walking a 4+ hour marathon). Those who focus on sports rather than one of the other five areas should eventually be able to compete on a regional level.
Specifically, I have the following questions:
1. What sport(s) do you participate in?
2. What is the level of competition at which you participate (local/rec, state/regional, national)?
3. What is the monthly/annual costs of such sport(s)?
4. How does the sport fit into your web of goals?
5. What friction does the sport cause for your web of goals?
6. What are some benefits/synergies that have emerged since starting the sport(s)?
I'll start with myself:
1. Powerlifting and [Olympic] Weightlifting
2. Currently ~$200 a month for one-on-one online coaching that includes daily technique feedback and programming. Additional fees for 3-4 competitions a year will be ~$500 annually.
2. I haven't started competing yet, but plan to do my first local competition in September. The time it takes me to progress to regional/national competitions will largely depend on my genetics and whether I have other life priorities that interfere with my long term progress.
3. I was already quite physically fit due to my military career working in physically demanding positions. I found that I already was spending 3-5 days a week in the gym working out just to maintain fitness requirements for my job, so I gradually became more interested in strength sports as a way to add some more structure and purpose to the training. I like that I can have an online coach and can use equipment provided by my free gym on base to train the sports, which fits well with my current lifestyle of frequent travel and living in less densely populated areas due to work. The structure of the training has forced me to improve my nutrition, sleep, and stress management so that I can maximize adaptations. Additionally, I had a bit of a mini quarterlife crisis last summer in the sense that it started to dawn on me that I would not be young forever, which pushed me to really make the most out of my current body conditions. Training sessions are also quite stress-relieving to me because they require my complete focus. Olympic Lifting has forced me to improve my hip, shoulder, hamstring, and ankle mobility/flexibility, which I actually hasn't translated much to modern life but I have to believe it will reduce my injury risk and improve longevity.
4. The coaching is not cheap, although I'm fortunate to have an $80k+ income and have relatively low expenses otherwise so it's not the big of an issue. It's also hard to put a monetary cost on improving my appearance, performance in physical activities related to work, discipline, etc. One downside is that they are not really team sports, so I don't get the benefits of social interaction and social capital like I have with other sports in the past. I mean I still get to interact with people at the gym, but it's not quite the same as working together with someone towards a common goal. I'm still a relative novice trainee, so I haven't gotten huge interference effects on my cardio requirements from putting on a lot more muscle. As I get bigger and stronger it may get harder to balance some conflicting fitness requirements.
5. There have been quite a few changes that have emerged in the last 6-12 months that I started seriously training. I didn't realize how sub-optimal my nutrition was until I really started tracking macronutrients. I started out as decently muscular and I've gained ~15 lbs of muscle and currently my BF% is probably lower than it was when I was when I started (BF% varies depending if I'm in maintenance, mass, or fat loss diet phase). Now I have trouble finding clothes that fit (mens pants are not designed for a skinny waist and huge glutes/quads), but I've definitely noticed my dating life has improved especially with dating apps. I suspect that once bars/clubs/restaurants re-open I will notice a lot more female attention as well. Additionally, I've noticed that other men treat me a little differently because I look bigger and stronger (maybe more of a thing because of my physical/macho career path). The fact that I both look stronger and perform better on various physical fitness tests means that my boss and peers rate my work performance higher, even on tasks that have nothing to do with physical fitness (they assume that I will give 100% effort and focus to any task just like I do my training).