I understand the point of movement. But if I’m honest, I’d prefer to sit in a comfortable desk chair and work on my computer. Intensive sport is exhausting and not always fun. When I was a competitive rower I had a strict training schedule. I trained seven times a week to win competitions. Even if the training was exhausting, it made sense to me to train.

Seeing meaning in something is one of the greatest motivators

This understanding gave me the motivation and willpower to train. As Viktor Frankl describes in his classic novel “Man’s search for meaning”, it’s not just me: Seeing meaning in something is one of the greatest motivators.

There are three pillars to health: diet, sleep, and exercise

After my competitive sports career, I could no longer train for the victories. My new reason to do sports was to remain attractive to women I wanted to be slim and well trained. Over time, new reasons came up for me to do sports. As you get older, you think more about your health. I understood that health rests on the three pillars: diet, sleep and physical activity. Now I had a second reason to exercise regularly.

Physical activity improves well-being

Towards the end of my doctorate, I spent a lot of time at my desk. I wanted to finish my dissertation. This meant spending long periods of time without movement. My wellbeing suffered greatly as a result. I recognized the next benefit: physical activity improves wellbeing.

At some point, I had the idea that I could use the time spent sitting at my desk to exercise more. After extensive research it found that there was no purchaseable solution available to achieve my goal. I had no choice but to develop my own: the concept of FitSeat was born. Since I wanted to start my own company after my doctorate anyway, I now had the right business idea. I’ll tell you the details about the founding another time. Over time, I got to know even more benefits of exercise:

Movement makes you smarter and reduces stress.

Simplified, The mechanisms behind this work as follows: the physical activity increases the blood circulation in the body, giving the brain more oxygen. Glucose and metabolic waste products are removed more easily. This means that the brain can work better. In other words, you can become smarter. It is very similar with stress. Physical activity relaxes the body, making it harder to become stressed. In addition, you break down stress hormones such as cortisol faster. Basically, the longer you are in a stressed state, which would be more harmful for the body.

The point of movement – 5 reasons

In summary, being physical active makes sense to me for the following reasons:

1. Sport makes you more attractive.
2. Physical activity promotes health and
3. Improves well-being.
4. Movement makes you smarter and
5. Reduces stress.

If you have any other reasons for exercising, please leave me a comment.