Jim Ryun was the first high school athlete to run a mile in under four minutes. Considered one of the most successful American junior sportsmen ever, he went on to win a silver medal at the 1968 Olympics.

Since he was young, Jim had dreamed of being on an athletic team of any kind. He tried baseball, basketball, long jumping, and even doing hurdles. But nothing quite fit until he found running. Even then, it took persistence.

In the book Sport Gene, David Epstein wrote that in Jim’s first race, he led in the quarter mile, “then his legs turned to bricks and sandpaper enveloped his lungs…” He ended up running a disappointing first mile trial time of 5 minutes and 38 seconds.

While his parents were not supportive, his coach and team encouraged him to keep going. One day, after six months of training and a 4:21 mile, his coach asked about his future goals.

Mr. Epstein summarized Jim’s response, “Perhaps 4:18…this year…and maybe 4:10 by the end of his high school career.”

“The coach had other ideas,” Mr. Epstein stated.

Jim’s coach and teammates all worked together to help him reach his new goal of running a mile in four minutes. He often let his teammates run five or six seconds in front of him during a practice race and then tried to catch up to learn to push himself.

During his junior year in 1964 and only second season of track, he ran a mile in 3:59. In 1966, he set the world record for this distance, running it in just 3:51.1. It was a record that he later broke—again!

Jim’s muscular ability and tremendous strength was a living embodiment of Proverbs 20:29: “The glory of young men is their strength…”

Throughout his sports career, Mr. Ryun strove to continuously push himself past his limits so that he could achieve his goal of becoming one of the fastest runners. This required endurance and perseverance. He lived the adage “no pain, no gain.”

Even Mr. Ryun stated of his career, “I loved the feeling of success…but how I hated the pain!”

Building any kind of physical strength takes work. It requires you to push past what you think you are capable of doing. This allows you to build muscle.

The Bible does not exclude girls from this concept. Just 11 chapters later, the same book states: “She girds her loins with strength, and strengthens her arms” (31:17).

While most would rather avoid pain, it has a great hidden purpose. It kicks the learning mechanism into gear and helps you develop a stronger body and mind.

Start Young

Building muscle allows you to grow in strength. Muscles not only give shape to the body, but they also provide the power to move bones and joints. Without them, we would just be a bag of bones!

Microscopically, muscle contains long strings or fiber bundles, which are compacted into smaller filaments. These tiny strings are a muscle’s “machine rooms.” This allows them to contract.

As with any other machine, though, muscles can be damaged. Yet muscle pain is not necessarily an alarm signal. Your nearly 650 muscles grow through a damage-and-repair cycle that often is uncomfortable.

Shooting or severe pain in joints, tendons, ligaments or internal organs, however, is not normal. If you have these symptoms, it is best to discuss them with your parents as these could be signs of a serious condition.

That said, you should be able to push through aches, burning and fatigue in your muscles. Such soreness is natural during and after exercising and often lasts several days.

Science confirms that strength training—applied tension—grows muscle fibers: “Muscle cells subjected to regular bouts of exercise followed by periods of rest with sufficient dietary protein undergo hypertrophy [growth] as a response to the stress of training,” Scientific American reported.

For example, four sets of 12 pushups or a session of lifting weights cause damage and muscle soreness the next day. It is a healthy response to an aggressive workout.

If you have never trained extensively for a sport, you may not be accustomed to this kind of feeling. You could even become worried by how much you find you ache a day after playing an intensive sport or performing another physically straining activity.

But never fear! The best time to start building is when you are young, when your bones, tendons and muscles are more flexible and have the capacity to grow with less effort. Muscle strength not only helps you lift heavy things, but it also tones your body, helps you build endurance, results in weight loss, and develops stronger bones.

It is important to build strength now because starting around age 30, muscle mass and bone density decrease. It then becomes more difficult for you to do as much strength training as you once did and maintain a strong foundational musculoskeletal system.

When facing an obstacle, understand that youthful capacity, ability and vigor should not stay at rest, but leap into action mode. You should bring Proverbs 20:29 to life!

Press On

Experts agree that youth “need a minimum of 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity…per day,” according to The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Ambassador Youth Camp is the ideal environment in which to push your physical boundaries in a fun and healthy way. Expect a healthy dose of daily exercise activities at camp. Your arms and back will most likely become tired while you paddle a canoe. Or during a long day on a hiking trail, your legs and lungs might burn—begging you to turn back.

But do not quit! Apply the adage, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” All activities, whether pushups, dodgeball, dancing, ziplining, archery, swimming or softball, will present this aching challenge—give up or press on.

Do not quit when your limbs seem to turn to lead. Pushing hard delivers even more oxygenated blood to enrich the body. The outcome is a healthier heart and lungs, as well as a sharper mind.

While “G” comes before “P” in the alphabet, when it comes to strength, “p-ain” precedes “g-ain.” A fellow camper learned this lesson while playing soccer. He wrote in the 2014 camp edition of Ambassador Youth, “Having to play through the pain helped me build endurance and perseverance…I pushed myself, which made me a stronger person.”

You can be one who pushes through the pain!

Strength to Strength

As you grow older and more mature, greater challenges will emerge that will require a different kind of strength: character. But to succeed, the test will be the same—overcome the problem or quit!

God has given you physical strength to prepare you to receive the greatest spiritual gift—membership in the God Family. To qualify to receive this gift, you must add strength—character—to your physical strength.

In fact, the mental toughness you gain while building physical strength is a perfect foundation to build spiritual strength when you are older.

This principle is actually included in Proverbs 20:29. Look at it again, but this time read the whole verse: “The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is the gray head.”

Physical strength tends to wane over time, but as it does, mental strength should increase. The “beauty”—ornament—of the “old man” is spiritual character. His “gray head” symbolizes the godly character he has built over the years by actively choosing what was right and rejecting what was wrong.

You probably recognize the crucial pattern. Similar to muscle growth, it requires “mental muscle” to resist the wrong way of life and build real strength of character. The apostle Paul attributed this power to a gift God imparts by the Holy Spirit. The first chapter of II Timothy calls this the spirit of power (vs. 7).

You can one day also receive real power!

The physical strength of youth is a foundation for future spiritual strength. Pain is a powerful teacher needed on your way to becoming a strong leader in God’s kingdom.

You can endure more pain than you think. Use your strength and push through. Remember: no pain, no gain!