I was chatting with my wife Angie this morning on FB Messenger. She’s been skating really hard, having just completed one competition and on the way to another, with the goal of working in a double jump and getting her axel solid. She was having some recovery issues, and she said:
Angie: you know you are exhausted when you are too tired to hit REPIN on Pinterest
Angie and Coach Todd Gilles at Desert Ice in Las Vegas Nevada, November 2013
It was so fun talking about her recovery, and the usual stretching, ibuprofen, rolling, hot bath, consuming a few more calories, a few more quality carbs, a few more aminos. I got the sudden inspiration:
Me: that is so totally worth being a slogan
I spent a few minutes in Gimp (my current photo editor of choice) and whipped this up in just a few minutes. I had a tough time selecting pictures since I’m not on my main photo editing computer, so don’t have access to a lot of my favorite images. But it’ll be a good test of the system, to see how this works out. Could be fun.
Too exhausted to repin on Pinterest
As an aside, this was in December of 2010 at about 185 lb and 14% bodyfat. This image originally appeared in my Blogger Blog article DIY: Twin D-Handle Long Chain Workout Accessory – how to make your own Lat Row extension so you can pull back farther past your chest for a longer range of motion (ROM) while doing various lat exercises. I should do an article on how to use it here on this blog.
Not a typical bodybuilding post, but I was reading a funny article about climber psychotyping with a clever approach. I got a good chuckle at the list, and found this one particularly applicable:
“Trainers ostensibly train in order to climb harder, but can lose sight of climbing and become obsessed with the cleansing act of self-mortification through extreme physical activity. This subtype is common amongst mountaineers and alpinists, as masochistic tendencies is integral to these types of climbing.” COUCH CRUSHERS TO WIDGETEERS: 10 CLIMBING PERSONALITY TYPES IDENTIFIED – The Stone Mind blog
So yeah. That’s totally true. Some days I’m training away and look out the window at a particularly attractive cliff near my house that’s never been developed. I tell myself someday – but know I’d probably rather ride a stairmaster than pop off chossy holds.
Is that so bad? I began this training quite a few years ago after a miserable ice climbing class during which I could barely haul myself up 40′ of WI3 without sewing-machine legs and hands sliding off my tools in spite of my wrist leashes. I had a really good year leading up to summer 2010 during which I was all around the world attempting climbs both group and solo, but minorly psychologically damaged by my Liberty Ridge near-death experience. Somewhere in the middle of that I discovered that I’m slightly better at training for climbing than I am at climbing itself.
No, it’s not so bad. I can share my insights with you, and give you a few shots of boost to get your rockets firing.
Attitude can be a really big deal when you’re trying to make changes and set goals. Sometimes it’s one of the only things you can actually change in your world.
You cannot tailor make the situations in life, but you can tailor make the attitudes to fit those situations — Zig Ziglar
You can approach life with a positive or negative outlook. A lot of people who are just beginning their road to better health and fitness have become burdened down by the negatives in their lives. Negative emotions, self-image, job, housing, health. Sometimes you can fix these things, sometimes not, but the one thing you can always fix is how you see these things and oftentimes how you react.
Fat Pants – 20 lb ago I had a muffin-top in these
When a person first begins, they start like a baby learning to walk. You have to do all the steps in the right order or it generally won’t have the best of results (in spite of the few oddball exceptions). Roll over, sit, scoot, pull, crawl, hobble, walk, run. Just like that. Most parents intuitively know this, and don’t go yelling “NO! Stay Down Where It’s Safe!”. Unfortunately, most outsiders aren’t all that supportive and utter blatantly negative statements.
Don’t run, it’s bad for you.
Here, eat, you look tired.
Why are you exercising all the time?
One won’t hurt you.
Take a few days off – you earned it.
Sometimes though, even very strong fit trained people will say something inadvertently negative, with far-reaching impact, and it never once occurs to us. How about a discussion like this:
Trainer: You should eat more cruciferous vegetables, which have many cancer fighting properties as well.
Client: Like what do you mean?
Trainer: Things like kale, broccoli, brussels sprouts..
Buff Friend>: Oooooh yucko! Brussels sprouts taste like nasty dishwater!
Client: Oh, never mind then.
For one thing, that’s only an opinion, probably based on a childhood experience. Many kids don’t like the stronger taste of cruciferous vegetables, but grow to like them as they age and their tastes mature. You have no idea what someone else will like or dislike. Also, the relative taste of the food in question has no bearing on the fact that you should eat more of it 😉
Perhaps now this client will quit the whole program, assuming it will demand that they force down detestable food that no normal person could. This is a wild example only of how a brief negative utterance could seriously impact the future of someone who really did want to make a change.
When you’re a beginner, you’re more sensitive to the world around you, the world you’re afraid you’re leaving behind, the world you’re still tied to in so many ways. You’re afraid of the future, and what it means, and you’ll jump at any excuse to bail on your “goal”. Look at all the New Year Resolutions falling by the wayside – gym attendance peaks in January and is back to normal by March.
When an activity ceases to be something you do and becomes a way of life, you begin to experience the pinnacle of freedom: Mastery … Your body is strong and vital not because you train; rather, you train to celebrate your strength and vitality. Training is a natural movement for you.
I made the commitment some time ago to be less negative, to attempt not inadvertently halting a person’s progress – whenever I could. It has changed the way I Facebook, Tweet and blog. I avoid sensitive topics when possible, to avoid being responsible for someone quitting over something that has nothing to do with their training.
Help me be positive, and help your brothers and sisters be positive, and commit to be positive yourself. Enjoy the ride to mastery and give a hand when you can. Thanks
wherein he lays out one possible approach to the fitness journey for a total beginner.