Family Matters

We often say that we’re in one giant fitness family. Many of you say it better for us that this group of people means the world to you, not unlike what a mother, father, brother, or sister could mean to someone. Just typing those words brings a smile to my face.

When you think about it, though, family relationships aren’t just the light, loving, easy times. In fact, the closeness of kinship makes the dynamic complicated with equal parts beauty and equal parts ruthlessness. If you have a child, for example, I would imagine there’s nothing anyone could do or say that would change your unrelenting love for him or her. On the flip side of the same token, if that child was a thirteen year old punk who’s got three D’s on his report card, won’t listen to his mom about cleaning his room, and just disrespected the company over for a dinner party. I’d imagine you’d still love him, but that a world of reckoning is coming his way (because you love him, of course).

That’s “family” just as much as the unconditional love is, in my opinion. I’d argue the ruthlessness is the love expressed in another way.

If you feel like family in the gym, I’d like to think that you could also accept and dish out the same loving ruthlessness that would exist in a real family. When your fitness family is slipping, I challenge you to keep each other on the rails. If you’d smack your cousin for putting his shoes on the coffee table, you can chirp at your classmate for dropping an empty barbell. We all know we’ll be the first to congratulate each other, so let’s love both sides of this relationship.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach