January hits the refresh button on our fitness goals with a clean wintry white slate. Layers of clothes hide our physique months before the beginning of beach season. The stories we tell ourselves of a lifestyle change diminish by St. Patrick’s Day because we’re all Irish on the 17th. The access available to health clubs is abundant in a nation that is over 40% obese according to the CDC. Food consumption or lack of it, (real substance, nutrients) has escaped the digestive path for processed filler. How can an individual apply the right amount of pressure on themselves to show up, push and pull machines, dumbbells, barbells, and engage the heart on cardio equipment? In addition to fulfilling their caloric content with balance?
Most American’s I’ve signed up in gyms across the country want to set the world on fire. When I would get ‘real world’ with them I’d say, “ideally 3x’s a week but let’s set the bar at 2. You’ll see progress from 2 days week because they turn into 3 without you realizing.” “No. I’m coming 5 days!” If I knew better back then I would respond, “Great! Let me get your debit card.” But I labeled this tour a J for joker on the sign-in sheet because they had no credit, debit, cash, or a leg to stand on. Enjoy the 2-week pass, which was their profile filled out beforehand, something that did help us gage a potential client but really it had in their own handwriting the rebuttal to their objection. “Oh, you don’t think you have time? It says you live 3 miles away and you plan to train M, W, F after work, doesn’t it?”
Make no mistake, it’s always about the money, even when one’s health is under consideration. I had a man in Alabama take the tour and say, “Steve, great pitch but I ain’t signing up, just want my free pass.” A week later he interrupted me on another circuit tour and exclaimed, “Steve, sign me up. Doctor says I’m going die if I don’t start exercising!” If leads were hymning and hawing at the Wal-Mart closing table, I’d hit them with, “It’s not my job to tell you to exercise. My job is to make it affordable and I’ve done that,” stare down ensued, don’t talk first. I loved that tension. So why is it so difficult to train 3x’s a week for 30 minutes? “You like movies, right? Well the running time is equivalent to working out for a week. Eating is the hard part.”
From my experience across the nation from Snap to Gold’s and mom and pop clubs in between, most people associate pain with the gym, exercise. It doesn’t register as a priority. Why? Probably because most are unfamiliar and intimidated by a weight room. This fear is real and I’ve felt it at new clubs even though I was experienced. The unknown is always frightening, especially when one feels inadequate. But with repetition comes acceptance. An expectation of a pump and a satisfaction of integration between you mind, body, and soul to sculpt a human being by not just will but vision and feeling is worth the squeeze.
I started my journey back on a planet of purple and yellow but it still astounds me how many of my peers perform movements incorrectly. They adjust the pin and grunt out 10 reps without joy or effectiveness. They demand results instead of welcoming them. The mind is the builder and essential in activation of the body but isn’t considered on the same level as weight and reps.
I can empathize with this sentiment because when I started training 25 yrs. ago, I had the same direction. Enough I would read every Flex, Arnold’s encyclopedia, and obscure training and eating regiment I could get my hands on I was driven more on my will than acceptance. Recording the sessions and my food intake made it even more real but still I hadn’t come to terms with understanding my make-up and how to activate it.
It wasn’t to my goal, mantra, changed to; let’s get a good pump. Satisfaction beyond measurements on paper but in an awareness of pain that equaled pleasure and fulfillment that generated from the inside; for that’s where real happiness resides. Getting along with my body and self is more intriguing then doing a routine for the sake of marking the board.
Over my time in gyms I’ve found many insights into who I am and what’s real. I once read the weights don’t care if your black or white, man or woman, child, or adult; you can either lift them or you can’t. Being a little guy I loved that the road was open to all. And along the way things I’ve despised have become welcoming. Cardio was my torture chamber with its boredom of not going anywhere. But once I incorporated my breath work and shut my eyes while jamming it has become a meditation of sorts.
Franco Columbu, Arnold’s training partner and best friend said, “never miss an opportunity for a pump.” The ability to coax the blood into specified body parts with the intention of designing, molding, and shaping the form one holds in the physical demonstrates the power beyond the body. Fitness entails health and health entails a balance. If we train and eat correctly, (most of the time) our mind starts to believe but it’s not our job to convince the mind. The mind will always desire, our work is never labor if our goals, intentions, are understanding of our make-up. What makes us feel the best version of times past and can be superior in the future?
Time spent in any exercise of mind and body will yield answers when you’re too tired to fire on all cylinders. To understand what food makes you light and fueled to what songs jack you on a tough set, and only worrying about your workout; your intimate date with yourself is a discovery. It aids in downhill gliding days. A planet of fitness where arms don’t do all the work because you can talk to and activate dormant muscles with a mind muscle connection down to a cellular level. That’s the planet I want to live on.
