Monday, November 24, 2014

Addiction

Thinking about training. Thinking about age. Thinking that my mentor Rich Salke told me, "Jimmy, everyone has 20 hard years of training in them and then they start to break down". And I can't seem to find anyone for whom that doesn't ring true.

The only way that you wont get hurt is to sit on the couch.  But you'll die miserable on the damn thing. Nobody I know that pushed their bodies to the limit comes out unscathed. I'm talking high level fighting, lifting, bodybuilding. It's not about health when you are lifting or competing that hard and heavy.
Sign at doctor's office.
                                       
And so you switch it up, switch templates, programs, times that you train, and you still get banged up.

And you venture into your 40's and you actually have people ask you why you still squat and press and push.

And I am thinking,

What other choice is there? Sit around and wither away? Became a Lazy- Boy sitting critic? NO! Do not go so softly. Not training? Can't imagine it, can never ever  even see it. 

And getting hurt? It is gonna happen. Accept it and work on something else. You can do something, always just a little something. Pretty soon, just by attrition, the number of exercises you may be able to do gets smaller and smaller. Just focus on those and be happy that you are training. 

It is a sickness, I believe, this yearning to train with weights, and this addiction happens pretty much when one touches a weight for the first time. You know if it is right for you and if you feel this connection with the weights or not. When you feel the connection, it stays with you through every damn thing. But at its most addictive, other parts of life will suffer for sure. Because the

Workout Always Comes First

And there are not a whole lot of girlfriends or boyfriends and wives or husbands that get it . Social lives will suffer, mealtimes will suffer. (I did skip Thanksgiving dinner at my Mom's house, cancelling at the last minute, because of dieting. Ooooh she was pissed.) 

But, really. Get over it. They just do not understand, man..Its training and it sets up the day, it is therapy for the cluttered, messed up, foggy brain. 

You get done squatting until your body is shaking and , it's amazing, you either don't care about what was bothering you before, or you know how to fix it. It's a psychiatrist's office but with chalk and sweat.

All About Being a Lifer

What's a Lifer? Someone who isn't in to something for just a day, a month, a year...it's for life. Whether its training or your family or your job...it doesn't matter. You work at it, you build on it, you see the big picture . You don't miss workouts because it means something to you. You are like a Shakespearean actor- no matter what is going on in your life, you block it out when it's time to train. You walk into the weight room and all else disappears. Worry about it later.