Goals matter. Reasons matter. The goal of RWND fitness is: To achieve “Optimal Health.”
Optimal health comes from balancing all 8 aspects of health: mental, emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual, financial, environmental, and physical.
Optimal health is about reaping all the joys of life while avoiding the pitfalls. What joys? All of them. What pitfalls? Mainly preventable ones.
I believe the only worthy reason to exercise and eat right is so we can lead richer, fuller lives. Lives not limited by low capacity or self-induced disease.
I really should leave this chapter with that last paragraph. That is all that needs to be said about the goal of working out at our age. But … it’s a lot more fun to poke at the alternatives.
For example, some have the goal of competing on a bodybuilding stage at our age.
You know—the pursuit of looking phenomenal for exactly 7–12 minutes under hot lights… while being dehydrated, in your underwear, depleted, hormonally sideways, and one cramp away from a full-body lockup. - Yeah, that's peak health.
Or take marathons.
Because nothing says “I respect my joints and connective tissue in my 40s and 50s” like pounding pavement for 26.2 miles… repeatedly… while praying your toenails hang on and your hips forgive you.
But hey—you got the sticker for your car.
Long-distance cycling?
Fantastic if your goal is to develop world-class endurance in a seated position… while your upper body slowly forgets it was ever invited to the party.
Don’t skip arm day. Just skip arms entirely.
Heavy powerlifting?
Now we’re talking. Load the bar until your eyeballs feel like they might exit your skull… grind out a rep that technically counts… and celebrate the fact that you can still pick up something you’ll never actually need to pick up in real life.
Functional.
I’m (mostly) not saying these pursuits are bad.
They take discipline. They take grit. They take a certain level of obsession that, honestly, is admirable.
But let’s call it what it is. They are sports. And sports don’t care about your health. Many will sacrifice health for winning/status.
And somewhere along the way, a lot of people confused sport with health.
Optimal health doesn’t care how much you can squat for one rep. It doesn’t care how lean you look under stage lights. It doesn’t care how far or how fast you can go until your body starts breaking down.
Optimal health cares about capacity.
It cares about resilience.
It cares about whether your body actually works—day in and day out—without constant negotiation.
Can you get up off the floor without thinking about it?
Can you carry what life asks you to carry?
Can you move, bend, reach, climb, and recover… without paying for it for the next three days?
That’s the game.
If you want to take that body—one built on strength, balance, mobility, and durability—and go run a marathon, or step on stage, or chase a total… go for it. Just don’t build your entire life around something that slowly takes those things away from you.
Start with optimal health. Earn the right to do the other stuff. Because at our age, the goal isn’t to prove how hard we can push. It’s to make sure we can keep going.