Tuesday, February 21, 2012

...because LIFE is heavy...

It was one of those mornings when I woke up fairly certain that whatever battle went on between me and the sheets last night,...I lost.  I had sheet marks all over my face...up and down my arms...my stomach...it was ridiculous.  I stumbled to the bathroom and nearly scared myself when I turned on the light.  Honestly, 4:30 looks good on no one.  One day I'll snap a photo and post it...riiight...then I'll lose half my business and scare the crap out of some 12 year old Russian surfing the net.  Yeah, not going to happen...
It was a slow start for me prior to coffee and then I had to hit the ground running.  My morning was pretty busy and exciting to welcome back a client of mine who I haven't seen in awhile.  Its tough sometimes when clients go on a hiatus because if its for personal or financial reasons you never want to push the envelop.  BUT, for others its a matter of simply not making the time and then getting into a bad spiral of "well, I haven't been in 4 weeks, might as well not go this week...".  That's crap....and that was me putting it nicely.  Every day is a new day, a new opportunity,...treat it as such. 

My workout today was chest, quads, and core.  What a combo.  I started with all my chest lifts and did a nice little 12, 10, 8, 6 rep range on my bigger, compound movements.  It felt great to lift heavy.  Who am I kidding, it always feels great to lift heavy :)  I moved on to quads and kept reps 15 on all my lifts.  The superset of leg press and leg extension after my back squats proved to be horrible.  And by horrible I mean hurt-so-good.  I literally wanted to lay in fetal position after the 4th set.  I would have paid money to lay in the fetal position.  I finished with 50 squat jumps...5 sets of 10, 15 seconds rest between sets.  I was done.
I truly had no desire to do any cardio after that workout, but knew my legs would be extremely sore if I didn't do at least a little something.  I started hiking up the incline and settled in after about 8 minutes.  I only did 25 minutes, but that's about 25 minutes more than what my legs wanted.  And apparently, I don't care what my legs want because I just mutilated them on leg extensions.  So twisted...

There's a fine line in pushing yourself and listening to your body,...when it needs to rest or take it easy.  I definitely have clients/athletes who will push themselves to the point of overtraining and I literally have to force them to take a day/week off.  And then there is the other percentage of people...whose pain threshold is about a 1.5 on a scale of 1-10.  I look at them and something starts to hurt.  Where sweating is bad, struggle is unbearable, and just the thought of working out makes them want to quit.  That's reality.  I don't like it,...wish I could change it,...but it is what it is.  They need me and in a strange way I need them...to push me as a trainer to understand what motivates and drives them.  I think for the most part though, the majority of people fall in the 2nd category.  We live in a society of a quick-fix to everything, AND one that loves to blame outside influences for internal problems.  So naturally, why would we love to truly work hard in the gym..??....pushing ourselves to the limit and mentally/emotionally confronting the issues that are keeping us from our goals..??... BECAUSE ITS HARD.  Its easier to sit back, point the finger, be comfortably uncomfortable, and hope that one day things will just change.  That sounds ridiculous, and yet we do it on a daily basis.
Something to ponder.  What's holding you back?  The answer is yourself.
I get fired up about this.
I think I'm sweating on the keyboard.

Almost 8:00 and I need to head to bed soon.  I can feel myself catching a bug and I really cannot afford to get sick...got to recharge the machine.
I just sneezed all over my computer.  Perfect timing.

Hump day here we come.  Remember, its another opportunity...seize it.  No excuses.

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