What, Socrates and Strength?

• By vishwa on Health, Inspiration, Training

• August 25, 2016

“What a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”  Socrates.

I am truly surprised to know that Socrates said this. As a history student, I admired Socrates.   Socrates was a well-known philosopher and famous for his dialogues, as he was a brilliant intellect.  So, for him to speak about physicality is unlikely.  I, however, checked and searched in Google and I saw different quotes of Socrates, but they all meant the same.

Thanks to the book titled The Edge of Strength:  An Unconventional Guide To Live Your Strength authored by Scott Iardella.   I bought the kindle version of the book and found the quote by this great western thinker in the first page.  On a similar note, I first heard about Socrates from my late maternal uncle who was a doctor.  My uncle was a very well read man and a physical culturist.   He had many times stated about Socrates and his wife.   How his wife had poured the contents of a chamber pot over the head of Socrates for she always disagreed with him.  HA!  Likewise, Plato is well known to be the favorite pupil and the mouth piece of Socrates.  Much of the facts about Socrates is known to us because of Plato.  There is also a school of thought, which thinks that Socrates didn’t exist.  They narrate that Plato severely feared execution, for his revolutionary ideas.  So, Plato used Socrates name as a pseudonym to project his own ideas.  The fear of being jailed for projecting his own thoughts was thwarted successfully.  However, the reasoning that Socrates didn’t exist is rejected by many scholars.

Moreover, I studied about western philosophers when I pursued my arts graduation.  Socrates, one of the founders of western philosophers, wasn’t a topic to study.  However, as I had heard about Socrates from my uncle, I also had made an attempt to study about him by referring other books.   I never came across his statement about physical strength.  This quote, as I stated earlier, continues to amaze me.

However, as Socrates points, strength is the foundation on which you build a strong and well-conditioned body.  It is the one physical quality that improves every aspect of performance.  As the author Scott says, “There is nothing like feeling strong.”  He adds, “You were meant to be strong.  You are designed to be strong.”   Rightly so!  Whoever wants to build a aesthetically beautiful body should pursue that after he has attained ample amount of strength through strength training.  On a similar note, sporting events like grappling, boxing, martial arts, football, hockey and track and field also require strength training as their backbone.  Strength training is also proved beyond doubt that it’s anti-aging for elderly people.  Moreover, What Scott and Socrates say go hand in hand, and Socrates would not stop to amaze me.  The keen intellect he possessed urged him to think ahead of his time.