4 min read
Published on September 17, 2025
I was the kid who loved to run, play, and be active all the time. I always loved sports. As a kid, I couldn’t stand when people found fun in board games, chess—anything that involved being stationary. Of course, that was a super stupid take. But you get the gist of what I’m saying. I loved to move around. Looking back, this turned out to be a good thing, because as I grew up, my parents emphasized the importance of exercise, which validated my love for being active.
After 10th grade, I got a bit chubby. So I decided to start working out every morning before school. Nothing much—just a few stretches and jumping jacks and stuff like that, which my father taught me. I didn’t do much research into it, but the effect it had on me was something else. On the days I exercised, I felt more relaxed, confident, and positive. This was my first actual taste of exercise. I am grateful that I got to experience the relationship between exercise and mental health.
Fast-forward to the COVID lockdown, I started taking gaming more seriously. My four friends and I would play a game called Rainbow Six Siege competitively. During this time, I’d look up advice on how to get better at gaming, and I’d watch what pro teams were doing. I noticed a pattern: all major esports organizations would have weight-training sessions for their players. This was weird to me because gaming is something you associate with being “static.” But it turns out, weight training has a huge impact on your mental output. And gaming is really a mentally taxing sport (when you play it competitively).
After reading this, I packed a bag full of books to use as weights and began training, hoping it would improve my gaming. I didn’t enjoy weight training at that time because I didn’t understand it well enough, and I didn’t have a good feedback mechanism since I was just training on my own.
Then, post-COVID, when I got my first job, I decided to join kickboxing. I am a big fan of combat sports, and this was huge for me. I started weight training again—this time at an actual gym—because I wanted to get stronger for kickboxing. As I said before, I didn’t find weight training that interesting. What’s interesting about moving weights in a predefined manner? How is that fun?
And then it clicked for me. I felt what most people call the “mind–muscle connection.” Along with this, I started to see tiny improvements in my physique. That’s when I got hooked on weight training—and I’ve been enjoying it ever since. It’s been more than two years since I started kickboxing and weight training, and these are some of the best decisions I’ve made.
Every day I don’t train, I feel miserable and guilty. I’ll find a way to train somehow—at least 10 push-ups in my room. Tying your identity so closely to something usually isn’t healthy, but in this case, I think it works for me. It keeps me accountable. It keeps me from slipping up.
I’m not saying I’m perfect. Sometimes I’ll skip a few days out of laziness—other times it stretches into weeks, even a month. But there is always a voice inside me reminding me how long I’ve been out of training, and it helps me come back.
Recently, I saw someone mention something that resonated with me a lot: “Everyday Athlete.” I was lacking a good term for this, and this made a lot of sense. This perfectly captures my identity. I never had a name for it before, but this phrase sums it up.
So my point in writing this is to encourage people to exercise and lift weights. I see people who never exercise. You don’t have to go through all that I experimented with. You just have to do a simple Google search on how to improve your life, and the first thing that pops up is “exercise.” So go out and train. The benefits you gain far outweigh the friction of getting started!