I’m very careful how I use the term ‘slippery slope’. Has anybody told you that it’s the start of a slippery slope just because you have done something that goes against their agenda. They are suggesting that just because you have done something against what is perceived to be the right path that this will become an unhealthy habit leading to the slippery slope. It is commonly known as The Slippery Road Fallacy.
An example would be an arguer suggesting that if we ban rifles this will lead to banning hand guns, and then cap guns, then water pistols and before we know it snowballs have been outlawed.
Another example of this is how many of us develop this anxiety around our own diets. You restrict or ban certain foods in an attempt to lose weight but when you deviate from this diet and eat a food outside of the ‘rules’ you are annoyed that you allowed yourself to do this and you feel like a failure. The self fulfilled prophetic nature takes over you and you believe that because you have deviated once that you will do it again…and again…and again.
You tell yourself that you will write today or this week off because you over ate anyway. You start to binge all of the foods outside of the rules of your diet. In the end you don’t even want to eat it, but you continue to do so anyway. It’s almost like self harm. You feel a release as you eat it but feel pain and depression afterwards. The cycle continues. You have entered the slippery slop fallacy.
Now imagine an alternative. There is no diet that will take us on the right path, but there’s no slippery slope either. There’s just a path. Your path.
As you walk down your path you discover that there’s a huge selection of foods to pick from. There’s lots of great tasting, nutritious foods here but you also see the foods that you thought were forbidden. A sin. The foods with added sugar, salt, fats and ultimately calories. Foods that the headlines tell you to ‘avoid if you want to lose weight’. But as you continue walking along your path here they are, harmlessly growing amongst the stuff we’re told that you should eat. Nothing is restricted.
You know that, on your way, the occasional bit of extra sugar or calories will not alter your path . It won’t lead you onto another direction nor one that becomes slippery. Your path stays the same. No up hill battles. No unknown detours. Your path remains constant.
Having tried so many different approaches to dieting myself including not eating anything at all for long periods, I know quite a lot about the psychological impact that food anxieties can bring.
I am beginning my Balanced Plate Challenge on my fitness app next month and I am determined to show as many people as possible that there is an alternative to feeling shame, disappointment, anxiety and depression around their diets. There’s a path that they build, that they walk down and with the foods that they enjoy.
I’ve been having a bit of bother in getting my lads motivated for school in recent mornings. At a certain point in the term this can happen. Tiredness creeps in and I find myself repeating the same prompts.
“Are you dressed yet?”
“Have you brushed your teeth?”
“Please just get your shoes on!”
Everything is operating on slo-mo. Although I have found a technique that currently works, at least for this week, which is giving marks out of 10 for their efforts. Whether that’s their morning routine, tidying up or meal times. The higher the score the more of earning stars for the weekend, which is usually based around the Switch and Xbox time or VBucks.
This morning my eldest asked me if he had done better than his younger brother. I had noticed that this comparison has become more prominent in both of their mindset, yet I’m very careful in not giving any extra points to one over the other. I assist them on both managing to earn the same points out of 10. This morning was a strong 9.
What I replied to my eldest was the same response I used to have to give myself and what I have to say to many trainees I have worked with…
“Concentrate on making sure that you do your best job and don’t worry about anybody else”.
It’s easy to lose your way when you compare yourself to anybody else. You are you.
I used to pick up the 30k dumbbells because Biceps Brian on the next bench to me had just pressed 28k. I was trying to prove that I could outlift them, even if my form was horrible and it put my shoulder out. I should have focused on my weight and rep range. I should have looked at yesterday’s me and tried to better myself. Nobody else. I found this out eventually which is why I became a PT, but I also need to teach myself this outside of the gym too.
Bob lives opposite with his wife and two kids. Each morning as I am telling the kids to get dressed for the tenth time and I draw back the curtains I notice Bob pass the window going on his morning run. He waves. I feel like putting the middle finger up but I wave back with a half disheveled grimace on my face.
Bob
“A wonderful morning for it!” Bob shouts as he canters down the road. Is it? I think to myself as a worn pair of undies slaps me in the face. The kids are finally getting dressed.
Bob’s kids get into his new sports car effortlessly as I bundle mine into the Juke. Off Bob goes to school with his children while I’m sifting through the crisp wrappers to find the seat belt buckle to strap the youngest in. His wife Berni gets into her car to get to work early for her very important meeting.
I see the kids are finally getting dressed
On Saturday evenings I often see Bob and Berni going out for the evening all glammed up. They head off in a taxi as their kids and child minder wave them off. I look at the clock. Its time for Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, I’ll get the kids to bed and pour a glass of wine.
What I don’t know is that Bob won’t be drinking alcohol when they go out for the evening because he is a recovering alcoholic. His sports car is on finance and his midlife crisis made him get it and this has caused daily arguements with Berni because they can’t afford it. He goes on his daily runs because that is the only thing that gets him out of bed and his children can’t wait to be driven to school so that they don’t have to listen to mum and dad argue anymore. Berni gets to work early so she can meet up with her office fling.
We all know Bob and Berni. Their lives look terrific. But all we have managed to do is create a story in our minds that we begin to believe. You know your life. You live it every day. Warts ‘n’ all. The grief, the battle scars the daily bloody grind. So we begin to imagine that Bob and Berni have the most perfect lives.
Yet when we stop comparing ourselves to anybody else we can see that our own life isn’t so bad. Yes there’s still the ups and downs and curve balls that life throws at you, but you are owning this shit. You are not just managing to survive each day but you are thriving through adversity.
Life can be tough. Sometimes you just need to get off of the carousel. But make no mistake, Bob and Berni are no better off than you. Look at yourself and be proud of yourself today and see what you can achieve tomorrow.
It feels like I’m sat in a school hall at lunch time. No, that’s being kind. I’m in the middle of a borstal canteen. I’m waiting for a young Ray Winston to come at me with a sock full of pool balls.But it’s me who is the daddy now and I’m sat with my two boys in McDonald’s.
Two big promises that my wife and I made when we had kids is that we won’t buy our kids toy guns and we won’t take them to McDonald’s. So after a trip to The Golden Arches full of Ket they’ll be sure to go home and shoot each other with NERF guns or ‘head shot’ some kid on Fortnite. There goes that promise.
Each year, our kids are given guns for their birthday presents from other kind parents. And after much consideration my wife and I realized, perhaps with resignation, that children have always played with toy guns and probably always will. I played with cap guns, spud guns and water pistols but I didn’t grow up to be El Mariachi. Nor do I try to blow Roadrunners up with TNT because I watched Wile E Coyote and I’m not a Satanist because I went to a Marylin Manson concert as a teenager. So maybe we need to lighten up.
Since kids were having birthday parties at McDonald’s and mine were invited, which enabled their palette to taste such..erm,,delicacies then we have decided that they can go now and again as a ‘treat’. It might only be a quarterly event, but it fills me with dread with every visit. I had a mare today.
The first thing I noticed is that it felt like I was walking into a nightclub. Two security guys looked me and my lads up and down as we walked up to The Arches. Now, my youngest had just downed a bottle of fruit shoot which can make him seem a little tipsy but I was sure we would get in. I held his hand to stop any swaying and gave a confident nod to the doorman. He opened the doors for us. We were in!
The nightclub feel continued once we got inside as a bleeping noise akin to an electronic dance anthem was heard above the euphoric noise of revellers. But it was just the ubiquitous noise from the serving area.
And since when did Maccy D’s have touch screen to make an order?! My kids have very specific requests when it comes to how they have their burgers. It’s not something that I can get across on a touch screen. Chicken nuggets it is then.
As we sat down, brushing away a few courses of food on the chairs from the previous customer, I glanced around the room and my initial description of a school lunch hall was pretty accurate. Except instead of teachers telling the kids to get down from the tables it was the security guys. At one point they told a teenage boy to stop vaping or he’ll be thrown out.
Bleep!
McDonald’s food has always reminded me of toy food. It looks and tastes fake. I’m not a food snob. I’ve had many cold kebabs the morning after and I buy fake Pringles. I’ll eat most things as long as it’s not looking at me and I’ll even eat seafood sticks (formerly known as crab sticks) and I don’t know anybody else who will touch those! I’m not too fussy. But a McDonald’s burger has left my taste buds feeling empty except for a saltiness that I’m hoping my seventh pint of water will get rid of.
As we walked back to the car I was pleased to hear that my boys didn’t really like their burgers either. We all left feeling a little awkward that this ‘special tea’ experience was a bit crap.
But I can’t deny the influence of this global patty giant. Like the chain or not, it’s 850 restaurants closing in Russia is as significant today as it was it’s first opening 32 years ago. Yet every time I eat there I refuse to believe that it is their great tasting menu that makes it what it is. As McDonald’s grew in popularity in the USA the rest of the western world all wanted to eat like Americans, smoke, drink, wear jeans and drive cars like Americans. And this obsession stretched to the rest of the world too.
1950’s American McDonald’s
My kids pick up lots of accents and ‘isms’ from YouTube influencers. There’s an Irish guy who is popular at the moment but the majority seem to be American. Our leftovers go in the trash according to our kids. They put their pants over their underwear and they fall on their butts. It just seemed like yesterday that they were watching Paw Patrol on Channel 5. Today it’s YouTube channels. Their intrigue into new accents, cultures and languages don’t bother us, they can watch it but the content on YouTube is obviously closely monitored by us. Every decision like this is always discussed by my wife and I. Is it the right decision? We dunno.
Should YouTube be banned in our house? Do toy guns, statistically, cause future violent men? Do McDonald’s burgers affect healthy eating choices?
I was allowed to watch horror movies at a fairly young age. Maybe I was Jonas’ age when I watched Friday The 13th. And as I pointed out earlier I’m not an axe wielding murderer. Yet as much as I tell myself I need to lighten up our children have much more access to sex, violence and ‘swears’ as my kids call them with just the wrong click of a button. Maybe it’s different from a scary film from Blockbusters.
I’m a great believer that people need the opportunity to realise their errors for themselves. Having studied theories like Rogarian Therapy I understand how important it is for an individual to come to their own conclusions about their own life, even if these individuals are my young children. Maybe the next time we have a spare hour in town they might suggest somewhere that they actually enjoy eating at.
Last season I cringed as Jonas took his coat off during a football training session. It was a cold and wet November evening. The other kids were dressed as the Michelin Man but, despite the coach’s attempts for him to put his coat back on, Jonas refused saying that he was warm. I understand his coach having Jonas’ welfare in mind, but I also understand that until Jonas experiences a freezing cold November and can’t go back on his decision to put his coat back on in front of his mates, he won’t learn how to make the correct decision the week after. He knew it was a bad call to take his training jacket off, but bravado had gotten the better of him and it was too late for him to eat humble pie. But he has always worn his jacket on cold nights ever since. He won’t be making that mistake again.
If I don’t allow my kids to make measured mistakes now, in ten years time when they are met with much greater decisions to make they will struggle. Those who work with me will know that I embrace failure. Failure, or bad decision making, should lead to reflection on how to make better decisions next time around. If I tell my kids not to put YouTube on, or that McDonald’s is not an option, then the desire to eat the forbidden fruit will grow. I’d rather that they taste it now and hope that they realize that the forbidden fruit isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. YouTube channels of people playing on computer games are tedious after a while and a McDonald’s burger is nowhere near the standard of one that they can make at home.
But this is all a ‘hope for the best’ situation. I’ve trained people for longer that I have been a father. I’ve taken a journey with hundreds of trainees, whereas I’ve only been to McDonald’s with my kids half a dozen times. I’m qualified at training people with their physical and mental wellbeing. I’m not qualified at being a dad. Maybe a few lessons and an exam would have been helpful. As it is though I’ve got to wing it, like all parents do. In my job I know every given situation and how to deal with it. Eating disorders, self harm, depression, athletes with Olympic dreams, bodybuilders, fat loss or weight gain goals, I have a plan for every person who approaches me.
But in McDonald’s with their touchscreen ordering, two hungry kids, doormen chasing unruly customers and an incessant bleaping noise coming from the tills and I’m a nervous wreck by the end of it.
It helps having a past full of ‘what ifs’ as a PT. I can draw from my own experiences and, 9 times out of 10, instantly connect with a new trainee because they have the same ‘what ifs’ as me.
Most of the subject matters might be different of course. For me it’s my lack of traveling when I was younger or not saving money when I had the chance. I chose to spend my money on nights out in Leeds and clothes that I didn’t need. One night out in Leeds, even 15 years ago, would easily cost £100. Most weeks I’d go out clubbing twice a week. That’s a lot of the world I could have seen. Instead, I got no further than Majestic’s in Quebec Street, Leeds 1.
I had fun. Regrets don’t weigh too heavily on me. But there is often a ‘what if’ moment as I look back.
Another of those moments and this I can guarantee is something that is identifiable with my trainees is the feeling of unlocking my fitness potential. What if I’d have done this sooner, or done it properly first time round?
Fitter than I’ve ever been now at 43, had I had this knowledge and application 25 years ago could I have saved years of physical pain and mental anguish? I think I know the answer, but it will forever remain a ‘what if’.
I am convinced that, as human beings, we were meant to climb, lift, run, squat, throw and jump. And yet we became so clever that we practically abolished these great human traits and replaced them with lifts, cars, trams, supermarkets, takeaways, online ordering and anything else that required us to do as little as possible in order to get what we wanted. We wanted convenience.
Physically we can still do all of these things that we were designed (or evolved) to do but mentally we are becoming so tied up in the notion that we don’t have to do it.
Our society is becoming fatter and more depressed. We know what we should do. We have a history of millions of years telling us what we should do, but the comfort of convenience takes over.
And it’s not about how many miles you can run or how much weight you can lift. Unlocking your full potential begins by moving. That’s it. That’s the first part and it’s a huge step for lots of people.
But fear engulfs us. We feel safer in doing what we know, even if it niggles away at us as we complain on Facebook about our weight or our latest ailment. We want the replies of ‘You ok Hun?’. We get the rant off of our chest to anyone who will listen for another week or two.
A ship is always safe a shore but it is not what it is built for. No matter how slow it needs to go, a ship is built to move. In doing so it heads into dangerous waters with unprecedented conditions, but it is built to deal with it and reach it’s destination. With a captain and a map the journey is less treacherous too.
We must realise our full potential and set sail ourselves. Another day a shore is another wondering.
My trainees become their own captain. That is the deal, that one day they can train without me. They create an active lifestyle that involves consistent training and a diet that they can enjoy guilt free. Because I know how they felt in the very first day they approached me. And I know how to manage the ‘what if’.
The other day I had been training for an hour and i noticed a guy training beside me for a while. We gave a few nods to one another as we selected our weights and at one point I muttered “have you finished with those 22’s pal”. Our training intensified. I felt pretty good that day and this guy was obviously a veteran of the free weights area. We ended up simultaneously grunting out each rep which, to the other side of the gym, must have sounded like a porno you order on Wish. We were scraping ourselves off of the floor by the end, obviously being spurred on by each other. He turned to me, smiled and said”Why do we do it to ourselves?”
I get this question a lot. I usually just smile and say “I dunno. I’m getting too old for this.” But on that particular day, I said….
“Training can help boost energy levels, self esteem, sleep quality and mood. It helps us combat health conditions and diseases including strokes, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, depression and cancer. Research also tells us that performing regular exercise reduces our chance of becoming seriously ill from Covid.
Resistance training not only helps us in the now but we are giving ourselves the best chance to be as independent as possible in later life. It shapes our body through increasing bone density and muscle firmness and keeps us from wanting to eat and drink poor food choices because we are proud of our goal setting and our achievements and we don’t want to destroy our good work.
I become a better dad and husband after training. My mindset is in a much better place because I feel strong both physically and mentally. People meet friends while working out and a gym can be a place of sanctuary and a social hub.
I can wear T-shirts and feel proud of my body. I sometimes tense my bicep and say ‘Hello Mr Bicep’ in the same voice as Phoebe did to Chandler in Friends. I could even squeeze into skinny jeans if I were into that kind of fashion because after a few squats I think my ass looks like Beyonce’s. It probably doesn’t, but I don’t care because I think it does and it is my body and I have to live in it every single day and if I think I’ve got a good ass then I have a good ass.”
As I stood towards the mirror and twerked my booty whilst giving it a firm slap, he walked away shaking his head. I’ve not seen him since.
Who needs Beyonce’s ass when you’ve got a hat like this?
In football, as a penalty taker places the ball on the penalty spot, I can almost sense the outcome. Its in their breathing and in their eyes. They both give so much away in all aspects of life. Football is no different. A professional footballer, no matter how good they are, can display these telling signs of anxiety.
Those who remain calm or zen-like often manage to outwit the goalkeeper. Unless the goalie guesses the right way and gets a strong hand to it I am pretty sure that Mo Salah will score his penalty. One big intake of breath and steely eyed, he never looks like missing. He believes that he can, so he probably will.
And although you won’t earn £300k a week from doing it, your approach to the barbel for your next lift is very similar. If you don’t believe that you can, you probably won’t. This is just an extension of life.
Not asking the boy or girl out that you’ve had a crush on for ages passes you by because of past rejection.
Not applying for an exciting job role because you didn’t think that you were worthy.
Not doing anything about the things that make you unhappy because you have tried and failed before.
Everything we try to do now and in the future is a product of how we view our past. We hold onto our failures. It weighs us down.
Fear, past experience, lack of preparation, doubt and a self fulfilled prophecy create uncertainties within our minds and it often leads to missed opportunities because of it. We become burdened by our inability to accept our lightness of being. We are of a heavy mind.
We all have history that we wished we could change. I wish that I had seen more of my mum before she died. I wish I’d have followed my Personal Training ambitions ten years earlier. On both occasions, I was afraid of loss and disappointment that I didn’t know how to carry forward. And yet it is still carried forward, but it is in my hands on how I choose to carry it. I realize that now.
My lightness of being tells me that I am where I am now because of decisions I have made, good and bad. Had I chosen a different career I wouldn’t have met my future wife and I wouldn’t have my two beautiful children. I juggled a career and a family whilst knowing that my mum was dying of cancer. I did what I could. My dad was amazing. She was very proud of us.
Our past can determine how we behave and what outcomes are concluded. Our past can numb us from future success. But our past doesn’t exist anymore. It has gone. We’ve been there, done it and it means nothing to our future unless we carry it upon our shoulders onto our next chapter.
Our past is just a story that we tell ourselves. It conveys through our mind like a carousel. Now it’s time to find yourself a better narrative.
The shackles that hold me back, I know, are my demons that I have invented in my head. They exist only in my deepest and darkest moments. I don’t want to rewrite history, but I want to give the future me a fighting chance. If I allow my demons to take over, that can’t happen. They are there and I am aware of them, but like fuck will they control me.
I’m placing the ball on the penalty spot…deep breath. I know where it’s going.
My past is just a story. I am in control of how this story ends.
I’ll admit it right from the off. I’m no Ray Mears.
However, I do like a spot of foraging with my family. Showing my kids how to develop a healthy relationship with food has to be one of the most rewarding of parenting jobs. And turning to nature is the best place to begin.
Mindful eating doesn’t have to start at the dinner table, or indeed in the kitchen. Hunting for food should be one of the most natural things we can do. Mindful eating can start by searching, feeling and smelling for our food.
We are Homo Sapiens. We are meant to hunt. I am convinced that a reason our society is at a critical stage with depression and obesity is that everything we are as humans is slowly getting stripped away. And men, the once titled hunter gatherer, has a much higher suicide rate than females in the western world.
What sense of achievement or satisfaction does a man get from bringing home a KFC bucket to his children? His skills, bravery, creativity and masculinity stripped away from him because humans were too clever for their own good. They invented the convenience of fast food shops and supermarkets. They no longer needed to hunt.
Now I’m not saying that progression and development of societies aren’t useful. But for all of our knowledge, technology and convenience we should still remain grounded in remembering what we are and what makes us tick.
My family and I are lucky enough to live by the sea. Its a 5 minute walk to the cliff edge and the wildlife is fantastic. During lockdown it became our happy place and it soon became a venue for foraging. Today, we were hunting for nettles.
Marigold at the ready to pick the nettles
Once washed and blanched, nettles make great tasting soups, pesto and hummus. Not exactly high on our boy’s list of favourite foods, but we’ve been foraging for a while now and still haven’t come across pizza or fish fingers, so we’ll keep working on their range of favourite meals.
What our kids did discover today though, even if their reactions will look more like a bush tucker trial when it comes to feeding them it, is where the food comes from. They found it and picked it from the land. Their attitude to food, I hope, will be a positive one. One that can find food from the cliff edge as easily as finding the freezer section at Sainsbury’s.
The UK media talk about the possibility of taxing junk food to put consumers off of buying it. But this will only hit the poorest in our society. What we need to do is educate our children if we are to break the cycle regarding our attitude to food.
Our two hours foraging today was, the kids agreed, their highlight of the weekend. That makes me very happy. In a society where competing against the Xbox for the kid’s attention, I’ll settle for that right now.
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.
Talking tactics for my lads next match
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.
Some days I still feel like a kid. The vulnerable child that would put his head under the duvet and weep. My childhood wasn’t one of fear or sadness, but I had the usual anxieties in fitting in with my peers, scared of my parents dying or feeling lonely in a very big world.
If only my life would allow my older self a few minutes sometimes to just put my head under the duvet. After all, the same anxieties are there. But it doesn’t. You might feel the same too. Life doesn’t take a time out just for you so that you can reset and face the world again. It keeps going. And the older I seem to get, the faster it keeps going.
Life doesn’t get any easier, we just need to get stronger.
I’ve been approached by uninformed people at a previous gym that I trained in that have asked ‘how are you a PT at your age?’ or ‘why aren’t you ripped if you know what to do?’
It is a misconception that to be a PT you need a six pack all year round and you need to be young. Unfortunately, even within the PT circles, this is the belief. But that is why I’ll still have a Coaching business in 10 years time. I appeal to 99% of mainstream gym goers and I use my previous work experience to run a successful business. I am one of the gym members. That makes my job easier.
But another misconception of being a PT is that I train people to be fitter, to run more or to lift heavier.
I want my trainees to acquire these physical attributes if that is their goal, but my main focus is for them to become mentally stronger.
Benching 70k one month and 80k the next is fairly straightforward for our physical form to do. But mentally you need to be strong. If you aren’t, you will become frustrated and you will give up. Training your brain to accept that 1% improvement is a big achievement and much more productive in anything, not just the gym. But for me, life and my training are linked.
When I perform a back squat, for me the barbell represents the world with the weight on my shoulders. So I squat the hell out of it. Its not going to bring me down. Not today. It enables me to take this strength and power into my every day life. I no longer need the duvet. Today I am strong.
And it doesn’t matter how many plates were on the bar. That isn’t what makes me stronger. Its the fact that I did it. That is the key to becoming stronger. Just doing it.
Nothing gets easier, we just get better at it. This rumbling snowball of life quickly rolling towards you as it accumulates more and more stress and angst is something that we learn to outrun. We learn to pick it up and throw it. We teach ourselves to take the hit if we have to and we grow more powerful than it.
We put it on our backs, feel the weight, squat it and put it back on the rack. And we’ve survived another day.
Never Give Up PT 