I dunno, seems more arbitrary to me because I don't really see a need to be able to to X or Y. I'm mostly focused on directional trend and figuring out how much I can accomplish with the least amount of time investment.
Discussion
That’s fair.
The beauty of function directed exercise though is that you typically get back whatever time you invest in it (barring injury of course). It literally makes you more efficient at everything you do. I experienced this myself in medical school when I thought I was too busy to exercise. The sleep quality gains are priceless by themselves. :)
I think of vanity based approaches kinda like a shitcoin (if you’ll forgive the analogy). They don’t last because we all get old and our bodies necessarily change over time.
Function based exercise is like Bitcoin though. Seems slow and boring at first but in the end, is just far superior to everything else. :)
I think if more people looked at it this way, we'd get healthier, faster as a people. Finding ways to get "a pound of result from an ounce of effort" helps overcome the lack of early visible results.
You could apply this to a lot of areas of life. It's like a hack to lower time preference, perhaps.
I love the process of getting up every morning and getting out on the water for an hour or two (I’m a rower).
That training is hard work but it never feels like work to me mentally which is why I’m able to do it every day.
I think way too many people pursue an X or Y without knowning, “why” which leads to them burning out and not building lifelong habits.