The Similarities Between Money Management and Fitness
In full transparency, I’ve sat down to write this blog no less than a dozen times, and every time I’ve done so I’ve gotten overwhelmed and inevitably decided to switch topics. I’m now always the greatest wordsmith, but I’m going to try my best to keep this easily digestible by emphasizing a couple key points.
When looking at money management and fitness, there are many similarities that can be drawn. The crux of my argument is this: Cardio is like working an hourly job and seeing your net worth (or fitness levels) rise & fall. Strength training is like investing your money and seeing an ‘up and to the right’ trajectory (for both your net worth and your fitness level) over time.
Let’s start with the first sentence: Cardio is like working an hourly job and seeing your net worth (and fitness levels) rise and fall. Don’t hear what I’m not saying: cardio, just like working an actual job, IS VITALLY IMPORTANT. This is not an anti-cardio blog just because it’s being written by a strength coach. Without a paying job, it makes the ability to invest your money MUCH more difficult. Similarly, without a baseline level of cardio, it makes everything else (including strength training) MUCH more difficult. That being said, we all know an individual who lives paycheck to paycheck and never thinks about investing their money or storing it away for their future. There’s no thoughts about longevity, but rather they think of everything in the short term. They are simply trading their time for money. Most people can realize this is no way to live and there should be some sort of thought on the bigger picture.
In that same vein, the individual who only ever does cardio isn’t truly creating any LASTING changes to their overall health. Yes, it’s great & important to burn calories. Yes, it’s important to have a baseline level of cardio. That being said, if we can start to think of the bigger picture, ONLY doing cardio is like trading our time for results. We aren’t doing anything to change our metabolism and there’s no thoughts about longevity. Only doing cardio to burn calories (generally speaking to try to look better) is thinking in the short-term, or in other words, living paycheck to paycheck.
Now let’s move on to the second sentence: Strength training is like investing your money and seeing and ‘up and to the right’ trajectory (for both your net worth and your fitness level) over time. To start this conversation, let’s start with some simple facts.
Investing your money, when done properly, is the primary way to increase your net value over a long period of time.
All other factors being equal, and individual who invests their money will (in the long term) see a greater increase in net worth than in individual who does not invest their money.
Strength training, when done properly, is the primary way to increase the amount of lean muscle mass over a long period of time.
All other factors being equal, an individual who has more lean muscle mass will (in the long term) burn more calories than an individual who has less lean muscle mass.
For those unaware, yes this is true. I won’t bore you with the scientific reasons behind it, but increasing your lean muscle mass will help to ‘boost’ your metabolism. NOW we’re starting to think long-term health. When we strength train, we gain muscle mass, and when we gain muscle mass we’re creating lasting effects. The more consistently we strength train, the more we’re going to notice these changes. Now, not only are we seeing the short term benefits of strength training, but we’re seeing the long-term ‘up and to the right’ trajectory that I mentioned earlier. The benefits of longevity, increased life span or the changes happening on the cellular level haven’t even been mentioned, but this blog is getting pretty lengthy so I’m going to leave it at that.
Of course, just like anything else, it is true that there are exceptions to this. I don’t want to generalize, and of course certain individuals have their own situations that may prohibit them form strength training (or investing their money), but for a large majority of the population these statements hold true. Invest your money. Invest if yourself by strength training. Your future self will thank you.
