Gym’s Wisdom
Every so often I have an epiphany that is so simple, so obvious, so elementary that I get angry at myself for not seeing it sooner. Or at least not acknowledging that it is something that I know already… but I’m not practicing as I should.
Here’s an example:
“IF you want to get better at something (doesn’t matter what it is), the way to improve your performance is…
*ready for this?
… do whatever it is that you want to improve in.”
Well, duh!
Yet how much time do we spend looking for a magic pill, a shortcut, some hocus-pocus that will make us better without putting in the hard work it takes to actually get better?
You say you want to be a better runner. Guess what, if you continue to run you will get better.
Want to get better at pull-ups? Do them
Want to get better at singing? then sing
Want to get better at playing an instrument? Then play
Intuitively we know this. Why are some people great at playing video games? Because they play them all the time. Why are athletes so good at the sport they do… because they do it all the time.
In order to get good at anything you have to invest time and hard work in doing it.
Let’s bring this home to everyone and make it real.
You say you want to lose weight? Guess what… it’s going to require time and effort. Period. The “gurus” out there are making a fortune selling illusions of quick fixes and shortcuts… but if you want to make it real, make it last and see real results then you have to invest time and effort in the process.
Yet in this culture of instant gratification we want results NOW, right now. We also quickly become bored with the effort and move on to something more shiny, more new and easier. We want the sculpted, supermodel body but we want it with only the couch potato effort. We will spend thousands of $$$ dollars buying meal plans, pills, shakes, gadgets and fads in order to lose weight and slim down… but we won’t spend that amount of time and hard work doing the same.
It is a journey, a lifelong journey. It requires your time and your hard work. It will not happen over night (so you can get that fantasy out of your head right now.). It is a game of inches. Results are in direct proportion to the time and effort you invest in doing whatever it is you want to improve in. (R = time+effort)
See, its so simple, so easy to say, so easy to gloss over… but sometimes it is the simple things that we trip over along the way.
Now, begin… do what you can do today… and increase that by a little bit more tomorrow… and don’t quit. The results will come I promise you. Just keep on and don’t stop.
*we now return you to your regularly scheduled life already in progress*
Old Dogs can learn new tricks. Or “How I learned the art of not drowning and made it work of me.”
Posted in Exercise, Fitness, Gym, Livable philosophy, Social commentary, tagged exercise, health and fitness on Monday, June 30, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Al-righty then,
Tonight’s workout was a milestone for me.
Now to preface what I am about to say let me define some terms and set the stage.
1) When I say Swimming I use the term in the loosest possible way imaginable. In fact, think wounded whale on drugs. Yeah… it’s not pretty.
2) Any other reference I make to swimming just refer to #1.
So I had found a sleeveless StayDry style shirt at Goodwill that covers most of my awesome Chris Farley wanna-be upper- body. It does help keep other patrons from being unbearably nauseated and keeps them from going blind due to my neon-whiteness.
I began slowly and stayed at that that speed all night.
The strokes that I know are…
and…
so I used both of them.
Down and back, down and back, down and… you get the picture. I made 35 round trips.
So why is that significant? Well it is kinda a big deal for a non-swimming middle-aged wounded neon bright white whale like me.
See, that’s a mile.
Yep a M-I-L-E.
It took me two hours in the water but I swam a mile this evening.
It was some kinda ugly but I did it!
Of course now I can’t comb my hair… or brush my teeth. In fact, the keyboard is as high as I can get my hands at the moment. I may have to put the tooth brush on the counter and bend over to it to brush my teeth tonight.
It may not be what anyone who was watching would call “swimming” but I did it!
Now let’s go get that last batch of Spartan Challenge sit-ups knocked out.
We are the entity known as Persifler and we have been “Quitter” quit free for 689 days now
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