Connor Rice - What does fitness mean to you?

Connor Rice

What does fitness mean to you?

Words: Connor Rice
Images: Aaron Watts

Fitness is a choice. Fitness is a lifestyle. Fitness is a task. Fitness is an escape. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am sure you have heard them all. The thing is, whatever your ‘fit’ or ‘healthy’ is, it is specific to you. We all have our own reason. Why we do it, how we do it, when we do it. Working out or ‘training’ as we often say has a different meaning to everyone. We each have our own story, our very own ‘why’. Did you find exercise? Or did exercise find you? A forever changing journey with no particular destination. A complicated simplicity so many of us have grown to know and love. My name is Connor Rice, and I am a train-a-holic. Here is what fitness is to me.

An aspiring triathlete, avid cyclist, ex-motocross racer and former gym junkie. As complex as it may seem, that is my short answer to ‘What are you?’. Obviously, if you looked at my current training regime you would see a lot of swimming, cycling and running. Predominantly tri-related activity, other than the routine weekly gym session for maintenance and injury prevention, the odd vinyasa class and a surf here and there pretty well sums it up. But it hasn’t always been that way. 15 years racing dirtbikes, intermittent stints in the weight room and even a period of mixed martial arts. My fitness journey has been far from simple, and most certainly hasn’t lacked variety.

For me there are different kinds of workouts. There are the intense filled sessions that blow off steam, the high focus sessions for skills, those easy sessions to aid active recovery and of course, those long steady ones where you just forget about everything for a moment. Oh the power of fitness. Prioritising your training is what separates the enthusiasts to the 1%ers, the social exercisers to the die-hards, the hobbyists to the outright obsessed. The difference being you have people that workout when they have time, and others that make time to workout. I fall into the latter. The weekend rolls around? More time to train. Big day at work? Set the alarm earlier. Going on a holiday, where can I train there?

Fitness is a lifestyle. Whilst cliché as ever, this is a phrase that really makes a lot of sense. If I could give one tip on how to introduce fitness into your life and make it stick it would be to find something you enjoy and slot it into your daily routine as something you just ‘do’. No different to eating breakfast, having a shower or brushing your teeth. Whether it means hitting the gym, going for a run, pretty much anything physical that draws out those endorphins within. I believe I speak for the majority here when I say (without going full Ghandi) that physical activity, in any capacity is so important and is absolutely critical for a balanced lifestyle. Each day you get a new chance for a fresh start, your new routine, a better you. Take it and run (literally).

In the meantime, you’ll find me swimming, cycling and running my way around the Gold Coast, Aus. The work-athlete balance continues as does the constant strive to thrive within two careers. There has been no shortage of alarms with a 3 at the start, but that is life. That is my situation, that is what is required, what I’m willing to do in order to progress and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My name is Connor Rice, and that’s what fitness is to me.

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