Agoge Fit

So it’s 10 am on a Wednesday and I just popped back into the house.  Why?  Because yesterday, while fooling around on a chin up bar (cold, mind you), I popped my C-6 vertebrae out.  Of course, as a massage therapist, I knew all the right things to do.  I applied ice for twenty minutes several times over the course of the afternoon and evening.  I gave myself a contrasting hydrotherapy before bed and I took Alieve to further combat any inflammation.

This morning I felt a definite improvement but I knew I wasn’t done yet.  After my first client I scheduled an appointment with my favorite chiropractor (Dr. Ellen Witt).  She put me back in place and I can feel the improvement.  As the morning wears on I can feel the muscles of my right shoulder and neck relax and begin to lose their anguished cry of, “Oh Shit!  What was that and why is it happening to us?!”

I’m home because Wednesday is a workout day.  In fact normally I would have finished my warmup by now and begun my bench press sets.  I just saw this killer video from Scott Sonnon and his new TacFit program and would love nothing more than to intergrate some of those exercises into today’s workout.  They would have followed the bench press beautifully.  After that I would have rolled into (pardon the pun) jiujitsu and by one o’clock I would have emerged from the showers feeling well worked with that “tired, but I just really did something feeling” ready to take on my next clients and the rest of the afternoon.

I’m home because I don’t trust myself to stay at the gym.  I want to be better NOW.  I know myself.  I’ll test my limits too soon and prolong my recovery.

It’s all part of what I consider as a drawback to our instant society.  There are benefits to be sure, movies on demand, foods from all over the world just down the street, internet shopping.  Every boon, however, has its price.  Patience, it seems, is one of those.  Patience may well be a virtue, but it’s not very prevalent.  Time waits for no man…and neither do we.

I remember when I first started training this sense of immediate gratification held with me, and in funny ways.  It would prompt me to work extra hard in a workout, as if by the end of it I would be able to see a difference.  Or while focused I would be very restrictive of my calorie intake and be disappointed when at the end of the day I looked the same.

Change is gradual.  True healing is gradual.  It sneaks up on you unnoticed.  Clients will work with me for a few weeks and say, “I just don’t see any difference.”  Of course not.  You see yourself in the mirror, several times a day.  Your brain won’t recognize the changes until they’ve accumulated enough to be significant.  That takes time and consistency of effort.  That takes patience, both with yourself and the work

Whenever I start with a new client we always begin with this speech or something to that effect.  What I mean is, I’m not the Bridal Bootcamp guy.  I’m not going to help you lose 20 pounds for your vacation, or your reunion or some other short term goal.  What I’m after is to help you become healthy.  Health is naturally more attractive so there’s a plus there, but what I want you to get past is looks alone.

“Isn’t there just a pill I can take to make me (fill in the blank)?” I shudder inside every time I hear this.  This tells me you’re still not on board yet.  This says that the work you’re doing right now is a chore, a necessary burden you’re willing to put up with in order to reach that goal of “thin” or “buff” or “attractive.”  This changes when your training and exercise become a part of your lifestyle.  It becomes something you do because it makes you feel good, because overall life gets easier when you make this extra effort.

We live in a society run by image.  Even here at Lakeview, a gym largely inhabited by enlightened trainers and their clients, our cardio room literature is dominated by the latest yellow journalism all about which celebrity is screwing what other celebrity, complete with full color photos (not of the screwing, just the celebrities).  Plastic people with plastic lives that no rational one among us would trade lives with– except….damn, they’re pretty.  Wouldn’t it be nice to be that pretty?….Just for a little while?

Magazines, television, movies, video games, all of these visual media are absorbed by our fertile brains.  As social animals we are programmed to want to emulate what we see.  It’s how we gain acceptance.  Monkey see, monkey do.  So of course we want to be pretty.  Long term health?  That takes forever!  We want it now!  Lipo!  Plastic surgery!  Hell, even those giant people on The Biggest Loser shed half their body weight in a single season!

But what’s the cost?  What happens to our inner lives when our biggest goal is to have a butt like the girl on the Reebok commercial?  (Which I have to point out is so small it can’t really even be called a butt– poor, poor girl.)  Long term strategies by their very nature entail a small gain now, but one that builds steadily over time.  Healthy lifestyle changes often lead to a more gradual weight loss, but that change makes for a permanent loss and an overall upswing in quality of life.  The exchange you make is a steady effort, consistently applied.  Short term gains by their nature pay off big now, but their price is long term.  Anorexia and bulemia may make you skinny today, but there’s a lifetime of osteoporosis, kidney disease and other ailments to follow.

Rory Miller writes an excellent blog post on the social aspect of our minds, the monkey mind.  It is this desire to be part of the group, to be socially accepted, that drives many of us NOT to be special or exemplary.  Just as the drive to be pretty dominates our concept of why we train it also can drive how we train.  Group fit classes are successful for this very reason.  Get enough pretty people in a room doing something and soon enough all sorts of other people will be in there too, convinced that this is how those pretty people got to be pretty, regardless of how stupid or contrary to your particular needs what they’re doing is.  Dare to be different.  Unleash your own particular brilliance.  Don’t be enslaved by groupthink or your fears of rejection.  The brighter you shine, the brighter we all shine, as your incandescence shows us the light of our own potential.

For me, my light is strength, and all that goes with it.  To deny that gift, to train in a way contrary to this diminishes my light and you as my client suffer for it.  I can only teach what I know.

For this relationship to be successful we must both be clear on why we’re here and what we want.  I don’t mean to imply that I am dogmatic, or that my way is the only way.  As the old proverb goes, “There are many paths to the mountaintop…”  I am flexible and realize that each client needs his or her own personalized approach, but I’m also aware that as the proverb ends, “…there is only one moon to see when you get there.”  Or as Bruce Lee states in Enter the Dragon, “It’s like a finger, pointing to the moon.  Don’t focus on the finger, or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”  The “finger” is whatever gets you into the gym, or outside, or just plain moving.  In this case I even see wanting to be pretty as an effective “finger,” but the moon, the whole point, the reason for the finger is health, physical health, which spills into emotional and spiritual health.  Want to fix your life?  Fix your body and you’ll see you’re well on your way to achieving just that.  And that, I think, is pretty.

The heaviest I’ve ever been was 260.  That was near the end of my freshman year in college.  Post that period the lightest I’ve ever been was 215.  That was a little over five years ago at the end of a “watermelon fast” that lasted 10 days or so.  Today I stepped on the scale and it tipped at 250.

What does all this mean?  Outside of context, not much.  My freshman year was a very sedentary one.  I spent most of it in a bad relationship.  My girlfriend was very insecure.  I think somehow she thought if I was fat other girls wouldn’t try and steal me away.  I was insecure myself and the emotional rollercoaster of our relationship made food an easy comfort source.  With both of us working to make me fat it wasn’t long before I’d put on some major pounds.

The watermelon fast came on as I was just entering the fitness industry.  I never have had, nor will I ever have, a body fit to grace the cover of a fitness magazine.  At least not one published now.  Sixty years ago I was a stud, but now I’m just chunky.  For those of you who’ve never seen me, think pro wrestler pre-steroids or maybe one of those circus strongmen but with hair and a soul-patch instead of a handlebar mustache.  As you can guess I was still insecure and strongly felt the need to conform to the standards of my new profession.  I felt I had to “look the part” in order to be successful.  So following the advice of a “health guru” I ate watermelon and only watermelon for ten days.  I lost twenty pounds.  I was weak, I had low energy and didn’t look any closer to the fitness ideal.

Today I weigh 250.  That’s ten pounds less than me at my fattest and 35 pounds more than my leanest.  Without a doubt I am fitter now than I have ever been.  I’m stronger, I have more endurance and more overall energy.  I’m also happier.  It’s February right now so I’m carrying a little winter weight, not much, but I can feel a little more than say, July.  Come July I’ll be a little lighter, not much, 5 or ten pounds maybe.  That fluctuation I consider natural and in keeping with the seasons.

What’s more, I’m cool with that.  Before I might be panicked, worried how that would be seen by my co workers and clients.  What I know now is that I work hard.  My body is a reflection of how hard I work, but my body is also a reflection of what I work for.  I work for strength.  I work for health.  I work for stability.  I work for longevity.  Appearance?  Of course I care about it.  Everyone does, but it’s not my priority.

Interestingly enough, that insecurity I mentioned earlier?  It really doesn’t plague me as much as it did, certainly not as much is it might had I stuck with appearance as my priority.  It’s funny.  Strength, health, stability and longevity are things I can receive instant feedback on, from impartial sources.  The weights on my barbell tell me I’m strong.  That I’m able to continually increase those weights tells me I’m getting stronger.  I rarely get sick and I recover from hard training days quickly, a sure sign I’m healthy.  The exercises I do on gymnastic rings, stability balls and other dynamic bases both build my joint stability and exhibit it.  My ease of mind and flexibility in the face of crisis or upset point to a mental stability as well.  At 38 I’m in the best shape of my life.  I frequently spar or compete with men sometimes as much as 20 years younger than me.  What more can I ask of longevity?  If I play my cards right I’ll continue to live and train this way well into my later years.

Appearance?  I can’t count on the same objectivity, either from myself or those who love me, but my wife loves the way I look and I’m frequently chided by friends and co-workers for some of my more beefier attributes.  That’s pretty damn cool to me.

Post Script:

All of the above is absolutely true.  However, as it often is with life, I was tested very soon after having written these words.  A favored client of mine, for scheduling reasons, began training with one of the other trainers here at the gym.  Normally this would be no big deal, except, this particular trainer does look like a fitness model and could grace the cover of one of those magazines.  Now my insecurities begin their mad, irrational dance.  I started to wonder if the fact that I don’t look as fit as this other guy did figure into this equation.  I forgot that we are both competent trainers or that the move was due to a scheduling conflict.  Once again those old demons raised their ugly heads and monkeyed with my confidence and self respect.

The upside is that this entire episode lasted less than forty-five minutes.  Far less than it once might have.  That’s good.  It also reminds me that just like with my training, the job is never fully done.  There’s always one more plate, one more rep.  That’s the beauty of all of this.  You can always find a way to improve, not because where you are is bad, but because getting better is–well, better.