Thursday, June 18, 2015

Thoughts

Just thinking about something.

That YOU can do it, that no matter how bad it is with your weight or strength or whatever is holding you back, messing you up,  and wondering about yourself, questioning all of your discipline, hating yourself in the morning. 

MAN! Don't worry about it. It is all okay, all gonna work out. You can do it with just a little action.

You ever had those days where the cruelness and unkindness and the politicians and the media and the politicians and the traffic and the cell phone and the politicians and social media and all that BS feels like it's closing in? Makes you question the very existence of every damn thing? Where you look at people and everyone seems like they are from another planet? Where you can't believe that folks just don't get it, where everyone is shallow and soft and dumb and are breathing your air for no reason? Where death and life are the same and Hemingway and Bukowski and Mailer and all the damn good authors are dead and it pisses you off? That you actually think of them when you are lying in bed in the morning? And why you signed a contract with a publishing company and they lied to you? Maybe that one was just me. Anyway, ever had a day like any of the aforementioned days?

Guess what you need to do? 

Train anyway. Today was one of those days for me. The sky too gray, the  world too much.

So I got on the bike. Four Thirty AM. No, I didn't want to get on the bike. I wanted to eat cake and drink beer.  But I had done the bike many times when I didn't feel like doing it, and I had done it  for two hours a day when I was eating 300 calories a day for weeks at a time. And I thought of that time. So I just kept pedaling, and I watched TV and everything pissed me off, but I just kept pedaling. Thirty minutes done, fueled by anger.

Then I thought, well, I lifted yesterday so today is really a day off, and the knee is clicking and locks up,  and this goes on and on in my head and then! the little voice speaks...talks in the ear, whispering, the devil that calls you out...the message is clear, Harden up.  HARDEN UP! 

SO maybe instead of resisting it, and being a punk, I should squat. So I did.

 And then I broke a sweat and voila! I forgot about all the bullshit, because I was squatting, and you have to be focused and right on it when you are squatting!

 And lo and behold, the skies opened up and the world was okay again, and I did shrugs and dips, and cable rows and swiss bar curls. And kicked the bag and punched and drenched in sweat I felt damn good. I took almost no rest at all, and the heart rate was up and the goal was there just to reach for the burning and push beyond it.

What was I so worried about?

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.