Thankful For Faith and Fitness
Being healthy isn’t only about working out and eating nutritious foods; focusing on your faith and mental health can also benefit your health journey. Dr. Tyler Cooper shares the benefits of incorporating faith into your fitness routine.
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Wanting to be healthy is seen as a physical change that helps with preventing disease and illness. For Tyler Cooper, MD, MPH, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cooper Aerobics, mental and spiritual health also play a role in overall health. During this interview, he shares his thoughts on the relationship between his faith and fitness and how training in both areas helps to maintain good health.
Q: What is your view on the role of faith in fitness?
A: To me it’s more than faith in fitness, it’s faith’s role in your health. Fitness is an element of your health. As an organization, Cooper Aerobics’ purpose is to help people improve the quality and quantity of their life, first and foremost through their ability to manage their own lives by managing their mental, physical and spiritual health. Studies show the physiological benefits of health related to a healthy view of spirituality.
Q: Why is faith important in fitness, as well as in life?
A: As far as lengthening your life and managing disease, from a fitness perspective, faith can help address mental health concerns. In correlation to having a negative mental health, you are at risk of experiencing:
Q: Is faith necessary to achieve lasting fitness?
A: They’re synergistic, right? They’re additive. If you have a healthy spiritual life and a healthy fitness life, then you’re going to get a synergistic benefit to your overall health. I wouldn’t say it is necessary in that regard, but it’s certainly helpful.
Q: What does it mean to accept where you are in health?
A: It means exactly that. I go back to Rick Salewske’s story. He weighed 538 pounds, but instead of him thinking the mountain was too high to climb or too difficult, he started with one step in front of the other. Over the course of two years—with the help of the Cooper Fitness Center and nutrition experts—he lost 300 pounds, and he’s kept it off since.
You just have to start wherever you are. Establish goals that are achievable and make them so low that they’re easily achievable because success breeds success.
Q: How do you advise people to create goals for fitness and in faith?
A: When you’re starting out, don’t set the bar too high. A high-level goal might be achievable for a short amount of time, but for most people it won’t be sustainable. Instead, start off with something you know you can accomplish.
For fitness, my first recommendation is to start walking. Even if 10 minutes is all you can do, it’s better than not doing it. Once you accomplish this goal and turn it into a habit, you can build upon it. Ultimately you want to work up to 30 minutes of cardio exercise at least five times a week.
With your faith, you have to know why you believe what you believe. Understand your faith and if your faith is real, you shouldn’t be afraid to put it to the test. Do the work, know why you believe it and then practice it.
An example of doing the work is learning and knowing what The Bible says. Read it daily and talk with leaders and members of your church to get a better understanding.
Q: Do you express your faith through your fitness? If yes, how?
A: Yes, with my Christian faith I believe I was created to use my body. Physical activity is a natural part of life—we’re meant to be physically active. By using my body to do what it’s designed to do, I absolutely feel like I am expressing that faith through my physical activity. And just the fact that when I finish a run, I feel better physiologically and emotionally, I know I’m using my body the way God intended.
Q: Why did you start your mountain climbing journey?
A: In addition to running, I like to do hard things because it challenges me and reminds me of my humanity and that life is short. Getting outside and being on a mountain, you notice that you’re just a speck in this giant world.
The mountain is in control, for the most part. There’s this humility that comes from being outside doing these more treacherous type things, but it’s also a way for me to commune with God because of the quiet and the beauty.
Q: Why is it important to disconnect and be in the moment while exercising?
A: If your phone must be with you all the time and you’re constantly reaching for it, constantly looking at things even though it’s not imperative you do that, you have an addiction and it’s chronic in today’s world. This addiction does not allow your mind to rest which, over time, can result in physical problems. Exercising without entertainment is a great way to rest your brain.
Q: Are there any similarities in training for a fitness race/event and growing in your faith?
A: Absolutely! I can’t expect to go out and have a great race if I don’t do the training. The same is true of growing in my faith. If I don’t practice my faith—like studying my Bible, praying, attending church, serving others—I’m not going to grow closer in my relationship with God even though I believe and have faith in Him.
Q: Has your fitness increased your faith or vice versa?
A: My fitness and my faith, my mental health, my family and my friendships, they’re all intertwined and work together.
I recently climbed at Fisher Towers in Utah with my oldest son. We climbed these 500-foot spires—dangerous and exhilarating at the same time. It was fun, but just as meaningful was being with my son. Having conversations with him and seeing nature, seeing creation and feeling humbled. We saw the Northern Lights which were humbling and made me think about how large the universe is. For me, faith is reassuring in the sense that I don’t have to try to make human sense out of everything in the world.
Like faith, fitness is not something accomplished in a couple of days. It becomes a part of a person’s life and should be handled with care. Having faith in something can give you the opportunity to grow in multiple aspects of your life, not only fitness.
Learn how to incorporate fitness and well-being into your routine with Cooper Clinic. Schedule a comprehensive preventive health exam by visiting cooper-clinic.com or calling 866.906.2667.
Q: What is your view on the role of faith in fitness?
A: To me it’s more than faith in fitness, it’s faith’s role in your health. Fitness is an element of your health. As an organization, Cooper Aerobics’ purpose is to help people improve the quality and quantity of their life, first and foremost through their ability to manage their own lives by managing their mental, physical and spiritual health. Studies show the physiological benefits of health related to a healthy view of spirituality.
Q: Why is faith important in fitness, as well as in life?
A: As far as lengthening your life and managing disease, from a fitness perspective, faith can help address mental health concerns. In correlation to having a negative mental health, you are at risk of experiencing:
- High blood pressure
- Cardiovascular disease
- Inflammation
Q: Is faith necessary to achieve lasting fitness?
A: They’re synergistic, right? They’re additive. If you have a healthy spiritual life and a healthy fitness life, then you’re going to get a synergistic benefit to your overall health. I wouldn’t say it is necessary in that regard, but it’s certainly helpful.
Q: What does it mean to accept where you are in health?
A: It means exactly that. I go back to Rick Salewske’s story. He weighed 538 pounds, but instead of him thinking the mountain was too high to climb or too difficult, he started with one step in front of the other. Over the course of two years—with the help of the Cooper Fitness Center and nutrition experts—he lost 300 pounds, and he’s kept it off since.
You just have to start wherever you are. Establish goals that are achievable and make them so low that they’re easily achievable because success breeds success.
Q: How do you advise people to create goals for fitness and in faith?
A: When you’re starting out, don’t set the bar too high. A high-level goal might be achievable for a short amount of time, but for most people it won’t be sustainable. Instead, start off with something you know you can accomplish.
For fitness, my first recommendation is to start walking. Even if 10 minutes is all you can do, it’s better than not doing it. Once you accomplish this goal and turn it into a habit, you can build upon it. Ultimately you want to work up to 30 minutes of cardio exercise at least five times a week.
With your faith, you have to know why you believe what you believe. Understand your faith and if your faith is real, you shouldn’t be afraid to put it to the test. Do the work, know why you believe it and then practice it.
An example of doing the work is learning and knowing what The Bible says. Read it daily and talk with leaders and members of your church to get a better understanding.
Q: Do you express your faith through your fitness? If yes, how?
A: Yes, with my Christian faith I believe I was created to use my body. Physical activity is a natural part of life—we’re meant to be physically active. By using my body to do what it’s designed to do, I absolutely feel like I am expressing that faith through my physical activity. And just the fact that when I finish a run, I feel better physiologically and emotionally, I know I’m using my body the way God intended.
Q: Why did you start your mountain climbing journey?
A: In addition to running, I like to do hard things because it challenges me and reminds me of my humanity and that life is short. Getting outside and being on a mountain, you notice that you’re just a speck in this giant world.
The mountain is in control, for the most part. There’s this humility that comes from being outside doing these more treacherous type things, but it’s also a way for me to commune with God because of the quiet and the beauty.
Q: Why is it important to disconnect and be in the moment while exercising?
A: If your phone must be with you all the time and you’re constantly reaching for it, constantly looking at things even though it’s not imperative you do that, you have an addiction and it’s chronic in today’s world. This addiction does not allow your mind to rest which, over time, can result in physical problems. Exercising without entertainment is a great way to rest your brain.
Q: Are there any similarities in training for a fitness race/event and growing in your faith?
A: Absolutely! I can’t expect to go out and have a great race if I don’t do the training. The same is true of growing in my faith. If I don’t practice my faith—like studying my Bible, praying, attending church, serving others—I’m not going to grow closer in my relationship with God even though I believe and have faith in Him.
Q: Has your fitness increased your faith or vice versa?
A: My fitness and my faith, my mental health, my family and my friendships, they’re all intertwined and work together.
I recently climbed at Fisher Towers in Utah with my oldest son. We climbed these 500-foot spires—dangerous and exhilarating at the same time. It was fun, but just as meaningful was being with my son. Having conversations with him and seeing nature, seeing creation and feeling humbled. We saw the Northern Lights which were humbling and made me think about how large the universe is. For me, faith is reassuring in the sense that I don’t have to try to make human sense out of everything in the world.
Like faith, fitness is not something accomplished in a couple of days. It becomes a part of a person’s life and should be handled with care. Having faith in something can give you the opportunity to grow in multiple aspects of your life, not only fitness.
Learn how to incorporate fitness and well-being into your routine with Cooper Clinic. Schedule a comprehensive preventive health exam by visiting cooper-clinic.com or calling 866.906.2667.