Everyday Warrior

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Tonight I kicked off my return to cardio after almost 3 months without any structured plan.  I popped in a dvd – P90x PlyoX.  I love that one and use it  from time to time when doing cardio at home.  I powered through it and am actually excited to be back on a scheduled cardio routine.

I have been doing 3-6 cardio sessions consistently for about the last 2 years.  Finally at the end of the summer, I decided it was time for a little break.  Not that I didn’t do any cardio, but just not on a consistent schedule for a while.  The break has been wonderful.  My eating has been consistently on track, and my gym workouts have been unbelievable.  We can definitely feel the intensity and focus building as competition prep rolls around again.

I am just under 21 weeks out from my first competition next year and have been mentally focused on the prep work for the past 3 weeks.  The eating, the training, and now the cardio is all coming together as it should.  For me, I keep notes and all of my schedules go into a calendar.  I plan out what days I am training what muscle groups, the meal plans, and the cardio sessions.  I mark where things will need to change in terms of foods, cardio, and workout programs.  I need the visual concreteness to keep me focused.  If it is just in my head, I tend to freak out because my thoughts can go in so many different directions.  I need a clear plan that I can constantly refer to as needed.  I guess it is like my own little security blanket system. 

I have goals in mind, which  I have had since my last competiton, that have nothing to do with placings and/or winning.  Those are things I cannot fully control and so I don’t focus on them.  I can only control me – my condition, my physique, my posing, and my presentation on stage.  These are the areas I look to improve upon and have set some goals for this coming year.  The work towards these goals started shortly after I set them months ago.  Now, though, it feels everything is turned up a notch with the countdown to contest season started. 

Tomorrow is a gym night, and as I have mentioned before on my page, I can get fired up long before we ever step foot in the gym.  Tonight is no exception.  I have been thinking about tomorrow’s workout on and off all day today and I have almost 24 hours before I actually get to pick up a weight!  This is the kind of energy Pete and I have been bringing to the gym the last few months.  Every workout is just intense and there is no quit.  The positive mentality and powerful intensity has been amazing and I love every second of the work.  

This is the mindset I am in. It is a great feeling and life in this realm is good.  I will continue to bring more frequent updates and posts to the blog page here and I will be adding my current workouts soon.  Stay tuned.  Thank you.  Train hard.

Next weekend I will be a bodybuilding show at the Gymface booth to meet people and promote their clothing line.  I like their stuff and am looking forward to seeing their new fall line this next week.  I have just posted or announced that I will be at this show next weekend and will do a meet and greet inviting people to stop by and chat with me  at the booth.  For me, this is an incredible opportunity come true as well as terrifying on so many levels.  The idea that I get to promote fitness and health, natural bodybuilding, and motivate people to live a healthy lifestyle is awesome to me.  I am passionate about this and to be able to talk, listen and share things with others is incredible.  I am very fortunate that Gymface has given me the chance to be able to do this type of thing. 

The flip side of this is my own limited and humble thinking – why would anyone want to talk to me about fitness, training, nutrition, etc.  I am always amazed that people will find me on my fb page and take the time to either ask questions or let me know what my daily posts and ramblings mean to them.  Given there are millions of pages and people on the web, and so many different strategies and opinions on all things fitness, it is something when people find me out of all of that and I can actually have an impact on them.  I cannot tell you how extremely grateful I am for that and how much it means to me every time I interact with people online. 

And so the next phase of this incredible journey will bring me to New Jersey next weekend where I can interact with people face to face.  My hope is I get to meet a bunch of people, make some great connections, and maybe get to snap a few photos with people.  I don’t expect anyone to be there to meet me, but I still hope to interact with a bunch of new people.  It has been mentioned I should bring some 8x10s to sign and give out – again completely foreign to me, but I think I just might and see if I get to give any away!  What an honor that would be. 

I will keep you posted as I prepare for next weekend as well as updates once I am down there and a full report after my first meet and greet thing! 

Train hard!

The other night I had the chance to go see Cal Ripken Jr. get inducted into the baseball International League Hall of Fame.  It is the minor league version of the real hall of fame and is really nothing more than a traveling plaque.  For those that don’t know Cal Ripken Jr. was a major league baseball player who played for the Baltimore Orioles and besides many MVP and Golden Glove awards he holds the record for the most consecutive games played – 2, 632.  This is a record I doubt will ever be broken. 

The event took place before the local minor league game here the other night and much like  a little kid, I was excited to go and see the man himself.  I watched him give interviews from the dugout and sign a ton of autographs.  Sad to say I didn’t get one and was only as close as about 10 feet away. 

As the ceremony began I was hoping to hear something great, or powerful, that I could take away from seeing Cal Ripken Jr. – nicknamed “The Iron Man.”  In this aspect I was not disappointed.  As one of his first managers spoke he shared a story that has been very much on my mind the rest of the week.  He retold the tale how on several occasions he had asked Cal to come out of the game or take a day off towards the end of the season.  Cal continuously and politely refused.  For whatever reason this seemed odd to his manager and so one day in the office he asked Cal about it.  Cal told him, “When I first got called up I sat the bench.  I made a promise to myself that if I ever got in the lineup I was never coming out.”  That was in 1983.  2, 632 games later in 1998 Cal Ripken Jr.voluntarily ended his consecutive game streak and put an end to that promise.

To keep such a promise has just had me awe-struck all week.  The conviction and tenacity that must take to make and keep that promise for that long speaks volumes to his character.  No one else would have blinked an eye had he ever sat out a game here and there.  But he made a promise to himself and kept himself accountable to that promise. 

It has left me thinking what about us?  What promise can we make to ourselves that we can and will keep and continuously hold ourselves accountable?  I don’t know that it would be as widely known as setting a record that is seen and known across the world or that is viewed on a national level.  But what promise do we make to ourselves that we will not break?  One that we will not let ourselves out of easily?  One that we will make a priority and continually move forward with each and every day?  Is it our fitness goals?  Is that something we continually strive for and stick to?  Is it something  greater than that, beyond the gym and fitness?  It has left me thinking about just that this week and so I pose the question to you – what promise do you make to yourself, or have made to yourself that you keep, no matter what, and will not break? 

Train hard.  Make it count.

We are in the middle of a new program with an emphasis on heavier weights, lower reps and an all out, maximum effort.  I love this style of lifting.  My thought process has evolved and the goal of this cycle is to choose a weight that I think I can do for 6-8 reps and then start a little heavier.  Now it becomes an all out fight to get that weight into the 6-8 rep range.   Over the course of this entire cycle the weights may not increase that much, unless the reps on each set in any given exercise are in or exceed the rep range.  Every rep is uncomfortable and takes every ounce of effort to complete.  It is absolutely fantastic.  The key that makes this style even more intense is that I will only use a weight that I can complete each rep with consistent form and through a full range of reps.  I am in complete control of every part of every rep – both the positive and the negative.  There is no dropping the weight through the negative or bouncing a weight up.  It is pure effort and control.  

This is where the quality of the movement becomes more important than the quantity of the movement (either number of reps or the amount of weight used).  It is possible to use heavier weights with looser form, or a shortened range of motion, but in this cycle form and control dictate the amount of weight used.  I have learned a long time ago it is not always about how much you can lift, but how well you can lift it.  I have never done a 1 rep max on any exercise and have no desire to do so.  Weight is merely a resistance and not a determining factor.  For example someone who is curling 25lb. dumbbells with proper form, controlling each rep, and pushing themselves to the point when they can no longer lift the weight will have a more productive workout then someone using 65lb. dumbbells who is doing a few with good form, but the last half or more of the set with sloppy form, swinging the weight up and leaning every which way to complete a rep, just to let the dumbbell drop back down.  If they both do the same amount of reps, the person using the lighter weight, but maximum effort will get the most out of that workout and make the most gains. 

It is the quality of each rep and set, the ability to maintain control and form throughout a full range of movement that will bring about the best results and make each workout count the most.  This takes a great deal of concentration and focus.  Part of what I love about this program is while my muscles are screaming, the weight is heavy, every ounce of me is feeling the urgency with which to move the weight, there is within me a total sense of calm.  It’s a bizarre experience and maybe I am just strange for having this feeling, but it is a paradox that I have grown more comfortable with through time.  My best example of this is in the squat rack.  When we squat the goal is to use a heavy weight that will let us lower the weight as far below parallel as possible and then stand it back up.   Squatting takes every ounce of energy to get through a set both physically and mentally.  From the minute I lift the bar off the rack, my mind is going through a checklist of pointers about form, motivation, and to me it is loud inside my head.  The pressure of the weight and the physical demands of each rep makes for a raging battle from start to finish.  Yet, amidst this roaring battle I find I have a complete calmness somewhere in me – almost like a surreal slow motion film where this is nothing but silence and solitude. I hear nothing but a calm voice telling me you got this stand it up.  There is no panic, there is no urgency, just a complete calm and confidence throughout the set.  Surrounding that calm is a whole whirlwind of chaos, as the adrenaline pumps, the muscles rage and my music is pumping full blast through my earphones.  When I squat, often times the transition from bottoming out to beginning to stand back up is very slow.  At least in my mind it seems slow, but I never get that “uh oh..am I going to get back up?” feeling.  It is just calm and confident and it will and does happen that I stand back up and reset my mind to do it again.  I am pretty sure that in those moments the lights could go out, all of the plates in the weight room could drop on the floor and the walls could start to fall around us, but as long as they didn’t interfere with my set I wouldn’t notice a thing.  This probably all seems silly, but I love that feeling and have been working on understanding and getting in touch with that inner calm to make it work for me every time.

When you set goals, you should set both long-term and short-term goals.  Each short-term goal is like a rung on  a ladder.  You can’t get to the top without successfully climbing each rung.  The bottom rung is just as important as the final rung.  As you climb, you learn.  If you have never climbed this ladder before, each step unveils new things – the creaks, the bend in the ladder, the width of each rung,  and other little nuances.  In turn, you adjust your step, your climbing technique in order to make your climb more efficient and effective.   As you reach the final rung, you have learned and improved a great deal since you stepped on the first rung even though you followed your original plan.   From the top you can now look down and realize how far you have come and how many little steps you had to take to get to this point.

The same is true of your goals.  You have to go through the motion, do the work, and in doing so learn what each step has to offer.  The great thing about reaching each little goal is it acts like a snowball rolling downhill, it builds momentum, size and strength.  For example, I am currently one week out from stepping onstage again. I have been focused on this for a year.  I knew a year ago I would compete at this competition and have planned accordingly.  For the better part of 20 weeks I have sharpened that focus and detailed more and more aspects of that plan.  Each week of eating, training, cardio revealed certain things which then helped me plan the next phase.  I would change things as needed, but all within the larger realm of meeting my goal to be at my best ever when I stepped on stage again.  These past 4-6 weeks have been nothing but intense as the focus continues to improve, the attention to detail becomes greater and more precise, and the momentum has built to a frightening pitch.  I could not have started at this point 20 weeks ago.  Much like the ladder, I knew where I wanted to go, but I had to start from the first rung.  I couldn’t jump or skip any rungs and start two-thirds of the way up.  It just wouldn’t work.

Our goals and reaching those goals are a process.  When it comes to nutrition and fitness our goals evolve and the details become clearer and more precise as we continually put ourselves through the work.  The more we do, the more we learn.  It is the actions that make us stronger and wiser.  Thinking and planning is important but we must go through the experience of doing in order to make the greatest gains.  As we go through the process our motivation increases, we gather momentum, until we become like a speeding train flying down the track.  A strong, wise, and highly efficient speeding train with a clear sight of our path ahead and a “no stopping until we get there” attitude kind of train.

As you contemplate, monitor and adjust your own fitness and eating goals remember  it is a process.  Much like climbing a ladder you must climb each step, which is an achievement on its own, but with each step you are building confidence, results, and momentum which will propel you to the top of that ladder with greater agility and skill than you knew you had in you when you started!

Stay the course.  Reach your goals.  Enjoy the process.