Interior Fitness

Foreword As soon as I became a dad, I began to question if there were other ways of achieving optimal fitness. Until then, I had been trained, educated, and practiced in conventional fitness techniques throughout my time as a professional baseball player and after my subsequent certification as a high-level fitness trainer. Just having the thought that there might be an alternative way of training went against everything I had ever learned and represented up until that moment. As I watch my two children innocently at play, it makes me aware that true physical freedom, vitality, and fitness are not about the classic mile markers of weights, measuring body fat, increasing/decreasing intensity, tempos, repetitions, or sets. While I realize this goes against my entire formal college education and experience, and the entire classic fitness industry model, I realized that authentic physical fitness is actually all about free movements in the natural world and is a product of one’s interior state of mind. Real strength is not predicated upon the limited ‘no pain, no gain’ approach, but rather about feeling a sense of health and vitality from within. One of the revolutionary illuminations that I had is that fitness can simply be waking up in the morning with no pain. Fitness is having your emotions aligned with your spirit. This inner alignment is reflected outwardly via your physical posture and breathing. When you are fit on the inside, you do not reject those who use their life to teach lessons of love, but rather embrace the abstract emotions as powerful life forces. To be physically fit means to be present with yourself in every moment without blaming others for what has happened in your life. Whatever has happened to you thus far in your life is a result of your own prior decision making. Your comfort level with this will determine how fit you are. Determining how fit you are from day to day can only be achieved by taking time to be with yourself. That level of fitness is an attitudinal barometer of your own abilities and gratitude towards everything in your life. I wanted to write this book because throughout the fitness industry there is unnecessary pain associated with workouts. This pain is counterproductive and not essential for helping you reach your fitness goals. In fact, this pain often takes the form of emotional pain resulting from bullying by coaches or personal trainers, which ultimately sabotages your interior fitness, and therefore, lessens your overall physical fitness. Many clients often suffer intense personal shame as a result of this training technique. The client walks away from a training session and feels a complete lack of appreciation for whom they are and the talents they demonstrated. In order to cope with this negative coaching energy, clients frequently disassociate from themselves and their interior fitness so that they can alleviate this sense of failure that is being externally imposed upon them by these Hitleresque pseudo coaches. A workout filled with negativity and emotional pain will never get you to your desired level of exterior or interior fitness. The purpose of his book is to raise your awareness of the power of your mind, the power of forgiveness, the power of self-love, and to show you that the path to true fitness is to get physically fit outside the gym in natural environments. I am not against gym environments per se, because they have been a big part of my life and success as an athlete. However, I am much more supportive of doing the inner work that makes the outer results a lot easier to achieve, whether you are a professional athlete or just want to feel good. There are times when lifting weights and traditional training techniques can be beneficial. Lifting heavy things is cool and reveals part of you, but lifting yourself from the inside out demonstrates a much greater capacity for true fitness. It is what I call the path of ‘interior fitness’. What resides in your interior is what is reflected in your exterior. Your interior fitness is the secret ingredient to having the inner edge on living your life to your peak performance daily. This book is best read with an open mind. If you continue to think the same thoughts you have always had, you will continue to get the same results. By expanding your perspective and learning a new way of thinking, you can change your fitness results. Embrace the innocent sensation of a beginner’s mind in order to allow these new ideas to penetrate into your workout experience. The best thing about this book is that it gives me the chance to show others how I have made myself a better person by incorporating these concepts into my own daily life. Allow yourself to likewise be inspired to move your heart in new ways, which will reshape your life and your body. Then, share these new concepts with the people you love, so that they can reshape their lives and their bodies to be and feel their best too. To Your Interior Fitness Migdoel “Dio” Miranda Celebrity Trainer & Founder, DioFitness, Inc.