Strength is for something...

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about what SFC really stands for. Not our logo, our services, or even the things we do inside the gym, but the beliefs underneath all of it. The things that should guide how we train, how we coach, how we make decisions, and hopefully, how we live.

Like most businesses, I wrote core values for SFC a while back. There was nothing wrong with them. They were good things like honesty, taking ownership, growth, and paying attention to details. But the more I looked at them, the more I realized they could probably belong to just about any company. They didn’t quite explain why SFC exists or what I believe all of this training is actually for.

The more I thought about it, the more I kept coming back to one idea:

Strength is for something.

We don’t train simply to become better at training. Sure, getting stronger is pretty dang cool. So is lifting a weight you couldn’t lift six months ago, doing your first push-up, moving without pain, or realizing you can do something you weren’t sure your body could do anymore. But I think strength becomes even more meaningful when we start asking what that strength allows us to do outside of the gym.

Maybe strength allows you to continue getting on the floor with your grandkids. Maybe it means carrying your own suitcase through an airport, hiking on vacation, playing golf, working in your yard, or getting yourself up off the ground. Maybe it means maintaining your independence as you get older or having the physical and emotional capacity to care for someone you love when they need you. Maybe it simply gives you the confidence to say yes to more things.

That’s the kind of strength we’re interested in at SFC. Strength that expands your life.

Better Choices Now Create More Choices Later

This has become one of my favorite ways to think about health and fitness because we can’t control everything that will happen to our bodies. We can’t guarantee that we’ll never get hurt, get sick, experience loss, or face circumstances we didn’t choose. What we can do is build capacity.

Every time we choose to move, train, eat well, recover, sleep, learn, or practice something difficult, we’re making a small investment in the person we’ll become. Those investments add up over time. The goal isn’t to control the future. It’s to arrive there with as much capacity, freedom, and as many options as possible.

Better choices now create more choices later.

That idea helped me put words around the principles I want SFC to stand for. I didn’t want another list of nice-sounding company values that we could stick on a wall. I wanted them to be actions, things we can actually practice in the gym, in our work, in our relationships, and in our lives.

The Five SFC Core Values

BE PURPOSEFUL.

Know why it matters.

Connect what you’re doing today to something bigger. We shouldn’t train simply because someone told us we’re supposed to exercise, and as coaches, we shouldn’t ask someone to do something simply because that’s how it has always been done.

Ask why. Why do you want to be stronger? Why does your health matter to you? What do you hope your body will allow you to do five, ten, twenty, or thirty years from now? When we understand the deeper reason behind what we’re doing, the work starts to mean more. Purpose gives the work direction.

BE PRESENT.

Pay attention.

Training gives us an opportunity to learn about our bodies instead of constantly judging, criticizing, or fighting them. Pay attention to what feels strong, what needs work, what has changed, and what your body is capable of today.

Presence matters in coaching too. Being a good coach means seeing the human being standing in front of you, not simply the exercise written on their program. It means listening, observing, and responding to what is actually happening instead of being so focused on what was supposed to happen that we miss what’s right in front of us.

BE PRECISE.

Know what matters and practice it well.

There is no shortage of information about health and fitness. There are endless exercises, diets, supplements, programs, wearables, recovery methods, hacks, and opinions. More information doesn’t always create more clarity. Sometimes it just creates more noise.

Part of good coaching is being able to organize that chaos, determine what actually matters for the person in front of us, and create a path forward. Precision doesn’t mean perfection. It means understanding where we’re trying to go, knowing the steps that can help us get there, and practicing the important things well.

Because practice makes permanent.

BE AN EXPERT BEGINNER.

Stay curious. Stay teachable.

This is one of my favorites. The more we learn, the easier it can become to believe we’ve figured everything out. But I think real expertise requires us to remain students.

We should continue asking questions, stay open-minded, and be willing to change our minds when better information comes along. We try things, observe, learn, adjust, and keep going. That applies to our coaches, our members, and certainly to me. We should never become so much of an expert that we forget how to be a beginner.

BE USEFUL.

Let your strength ripple outward.

This one may mean the most to me because I don’t think our strength was ever meant to serve only ourselves. Taking care of ourselves increases our capacity to care for the people around us.

We build strength so we can carry some of the load. That might mean helping a neighbor, caring for an aging parent, picking up a child, supporting a friend, showing up for our families, serving our communities, or simply being someone others can count on when life gets hard.

There’s a quote from legendary bodybuilder Dave Draper that I came across while reading Chip Conrad’s work that captures this idea beautifully. Draper wrote about taking care of ourselves so that we’re more able to take care of those around us. He described lifting weights so we can “lighten the load for our neighbors” and developing discipline, patience, and compassion through consistent exercise.

I love that.

We build our own capacity so we have capacity to give.

Purpose. Precision. Presence.

As I kept thinking about these values, three of them began to feel like more than core values. They became a framework for how we can approach the actual practice of training.

Purpose asks, “Why am I doing this?” Precision asks, “What matters right now?” Presence asks, “What can I learn right now?”

Together, those questions connect the workout we’re doing today to a much bigger picture. Training doesn’t have to be something we simply do to our bodies. It can become a practice through which we learn about them, develop a better relationship with them, and become more capable human beings.

Purpose, precision, and presence are all in-the-moment studies of what we are making permanent. We’re observing, learning, practicing, and slowly becoming.

Protect. Provide. Play.

Then there’s another question: If strength is for something, what exactly are we building it for?

I keep coming back to three more P’s: Protect. Provide. Play.

We build strength to protect our health, our independence, and our ability to participate in our own lives. Training can’t protect us from everything that life may throw our way, but greater capacity gives us more options when those challenges come.

We build strength to provide, not just financially, but in the much broader sense of being able to give something of ourselves. Taking care of ourselves means having more energy, strength, patience, and capacity available for the people who depend on us. Our strength doesn’t have to stop with us. Its ripples can spread pretty dang far.

And we build strength to play, because we aren’t building capable bodies simply so we can fulfill more responsibilities. We’re supposed to use them. Hike. Travel. Golf. Garden. Dance. Play with your kids or grandkids. Try something you’ve never done before. Get outside, explore, laugh, and participate in the things that make life feel like life.

Because longevity isn’t simply about adding more years to our lives. It’s about keeping as much life as possible in those years.

Capable for Life

When I step back and look at all of this, I realize these aren’t really separate ideas. They’re all pointing toward the same thing we’ve been saying at SFC all along.

Capable for Life.

To me, that means building strength that means something and practicing it with intention. It means staying curious, paying attention, taking care of yourself, and then actually using the capacity you’ve built.

What we practice inside the gym was never meant to stay there. The strength, confidence, discipline, patience, resilience, and capability we build can ripple outward into our families, our communities, our work, and the way we experience our lives.

And maybe that’s the bigger reason we train in the first place.

Strength is for something.

Be Capable,
Laci

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