change – Page 7 – Never Give Up PT

The Greatest Teacher, Failure Is.

Am I going to start getting hate mail if I admitted to you that I have never seen a Star Wars movie? Add James Bond, Lord Of The Rings, Game Of Thrones and Harry Potter and you have the full set of movies or series that the rest of the world seem to have watched that I haven’t. I fear a perma ban imminent.

My kids, however, love Star Wars. But not enough to have an attention span to watch a full movie. Hence my ability to boast such a statistic.

My youngest loves Baby Yoda. He has a Baby Yoda teddy. I know that he is a character in Star Wars but I’m not sure where Baby Yoda came from. Anyway, Yoda seems pretty cool.

And I know from the amount of books and annuals that my boys have that Yoda has a few wise words to give. My favourite happens to be ‘The Greatest Teacher, Failure Is’.

Failure can teach us so much about ourselves. How we react from it can mould our personalities. I might be the only dad on the touchline who wants his kid’s team to lose sometimes. They are by far the most superior team in the under 8’s league so I know how my eldest reacts through victory, but I like to see his response to defeat. He will realise as he grows up that there are far more disappointments in life than there are successes. So having the emotional grounding to deal with that will help him embrace the victories.

You can only become a good winner if you are first a good loser.

Competition was always something that I excelled in as a kid, at least in a sporting context. I was very average at my academic work and my motivation at school was a case of doing what I had to until the bell rang. In the football field however, I’d give my all. And it was the same in every sport. These days I only run for a bus or if I am chased by a zombie. I tend to miss a lot of buses and I’m concerned about my ability to survive a zombie holocaust if it would ever happen. Yet at school I was a champion runner. I wanted to win, but even then, I realized that failure was a part of the game. It hurt, but it made me better at my sport. Any sport.

Due to sciatica affecting my performances and my recovery I stopped playing many sports. Contact sport were out of the question. I was a keen kickboxer in my early twenties but kicking became painful as the sharp shooting pain ran down my leg. My opponents never hurt me but my injuries did.

Before my passion for sports disappeared altogether and the pull of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll totally gripped me I had to make a decision. How could I still feel a part of a sport and experience success and failure? I took up darts, snooker and chess but they could all be played whilst eating a pizza and drinking beer.

I was introduced to the gym by a friend at a vital time in my life. For me, the gym is my sport now. It cured my injuries as I learned the correct form. And I could have my buzz of failure and success again. There are so many failures involved with a fitness regime. Much much more that there are successes. In fact, blink and you might miss the success. In the gym I climb a hill just to discover a bigger hill. And I like that. Sport doesn’t have to mean me competing against an opponent, it can mean competing against myself.

Today I will compete against my yesterday’s self. Sometimes I win and sometimes I lose. Either way, I will have been taught something.

Perhaps I should watch Star Wars just for Yoda. He seems like a real dude. But that Vader bloke? He needs to take a leaf out of my book, quit the ciggies and get to the gym.

Saturday Night

As the Black Eyed Peas once sang ‘Tonight is gonna be a good, good night.’ Over the years I’m sure I will have belted that song out as I got ready to go out to the bars and clubs on Saturday night.

These days, though, I’m happy if I get a few black eyed peas in my curry. Saturday nights with kids and with absolutely no desire to replicate my nights in a club before searching for a taxi at four in the morning means that fun and an appreciation for our relax time comes in a different way.

Tonight is a ‘curry off’ in our house. My wife and I usually make this a quarterly event. We each make a curry and side dishes, sit down with a glass of fizz and compliment each other’s cooking whilst secretly thinking that theirs is the best dish. (My wife is the chef in the house, but my vindaloo is unbeatable).

Once we have finished our meal we will crash on our sitting room sofas. This week has been half term, we’ve continued juggling our work and the kid’s extra curricular stuff and, although there’s an early start tomorrow for my eldest’s football match, crashing on the sofa with a couple of beers after good food and great company means that I am totally unapologetic about it. My week, for the most part, is done.

Once the kids are in bed my only gripe will be how Noel’s Crinkly Bottom was so much better than Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway. I have other worries too. Those who frequently read my blogs might have gathered that I am an over-thinker. But I can’t fix wars or the world’s issues tonight. I have to concern myself with my own family. And tonight is a curry off, crap TV and, if I can convince my wife, a horror movie. That’s my Saturday night.

We enjoy cooking together. It doesn’t always happen due to work commitments but even if I know that I am cooking for the both of us I am able to explore recipes and learn something new. Mindful eating is an important part of a balanced lifestyle but that has to start by mindful cooking. The textures, the smells, the tastes and the colours always excite me when I am cooking. Not only is the process quite therapeutic, but knowing what I am putting inside of my body is rather empowering.

Now, in no way can I do this at every meal time! Sometimes a couple of crumpets and a protein shake is about as much as I can manage if time is limited. But when I can get that time to cook, especially together with my wife, it is precious.

And when we get around to making our curries this evening, it might not seem as exciting as a night out in Leeds type of party, an Ant and Dec Takeaway party or as Blobby Blobby as a Mr Blobby party. But it will be OUR house party. Crinkly bottoms and all.

So tonight IS gonna be a good, good night. I can feel it.

Two Covered Eyes…

I have spoken lots on the need for progression in my talks, in my Personal Training and through blogs and social media and this is because, undoubtedly, it is the most important factor in opening the soul to the countless opportunities that we can give ourselves.

Developing the tools to equip those who desire to find their progression is my job. Standing next to someone and counting reps is what I let other PT’s do. But it goes beyond the gym floor. Indeed it has to extend to the world beyond the gym floor for successful progression to take place. I have not encountered one person yet who has fulfilled their fitness goals when the rest of their lives have been in chaos.

Progressive Overload is a term used to describe a training program that takes us through a number of challenges such as weight load, rep counts, how many sets and rest periods. In fact the progression one can develop in a fitness regime is infinite as there are so many factors attributed to fitness. Strength, speed, stamina, even life longevity all fit into this category. And without personal progression outside of your training program the progressive overload that we seek within our program is stumped.

But we must be open to change and this is where we fail. It is said that caged birds think that flying is a crime. We invest so much time in our surroundings that it becomes a part of us, etched firmly into our mind disabling us from spreading our wings and flying away.

We are so afraid of change that we criticize and often ostracise those who do change or who challenge the need for change.

We have been caged. In the gym we use the Adductor machine every session because the gym put it there and the instructor gave a vague explanation of what it does. A gym member asked me once what the Adductor machine does and I replied ‘Nothing unless you incorporate it into a full body routine including squats and deadlifts’. I gave them my card. I never heard from them again. For them to call me and ask for a full body routine would require them changing their own routine.

I was also asked recently what equipment is good for the belly. ‘Honestly?’ I replied, ‘None of them.’ I gave a few tips on core strengthening in which she replied ‘But I can do them at home’. And there she had her answer.

A gym membership is only useful if you know what to do in a gym. But moving regularly and mindful eating can be done outside of a gym and is great for the belly. It saves a few quid too. That can be classed as progression, but as I have outlined in two examples, if we haven’t got the right tools to progress or refuse the tools in the first place then progression is so much harder to find. Moving is great, but how we move can be better and more progressive.

We are animals that work within our comfort zones. If we applied a heat map to our movement in a gym the same areas would be covered. A part of my childhood was going to the local Working Men’s Club on Friday and Saturday evenings. If anybody sat out of place their name would be mud for the evening and if a newcomer ever won the bingo the shock around the room would be palpable. Something different had happened to the regulars of the club and they were unsettled by the change. Their Saturday night was ruined.

“I’ve never seen them in ere before Mavis”

How many of us go to the same treadmill if it is available? In a fitness class, who stands in the same place waiting for the instructor to begin? And when we go home after our workout, do you sit in the same chair? I know that I do.

But these little quirks don’t hinder our progress. Its the big ones that do. Staying in a job you hate. Going back to a toxic relationship. Looking in the mirror and hating what you see. These are the things that we need to change and it is only you who can change your own progression when you allow yourself to. Two covered eyes can be taught how to see, but a blind mind cannot.