Intention
Did you ever watch people training? I don't mean creepily, but to look at what many of them do in the gym? I am positive most of you have because if you have spent any amount of time in a public gym, you would be blind to not look at people and what they do.
Take away some of the WTF moments we see and wonder what the fuck they are doing, but look at the way they approach each set and how they execute it.
Are they set up correctly? Are they moving the eccentric too fast? Are they using the proper form?
Now, stop looking and get back to work because you will see dozens of people in a given week who approach training with a sluggish effort when it comes to INTENTION.
The key here is intention. What do you intend to do when you train? If this is your form of self-care, I am all for that, but the intention is needed. Lifting weights is a form of therapy (1). For many, it is their only form of treatment, as finding a therapist can be difficult when you consider insurance, access, waitlisting, and the fear of opening up your wounds for others to hear.
Treat your training as a form of meditation. Instead of listening to music with words, try to listen to instrumentals like "Two Steps from Hell," (2) a symphonic band that makes epic music for movies and games. Just feel the music and focus on what you are doing.
Keep your phone away from you so you don't scroll through songs, use the rest periods to thumb through social media posts, and don't reply to texts or emails.
This is your time. Your time is valuable, so invest in it.
Treat each set and rep with the respect they deserve, as your body and health are worth it. Accept the results as they come, whether or not you can get one more rep than last week or you can't match the effort from prior. Either is ok because you are intentionally training and blocking out everything around you. Your mental state is worth it.
The mental side of training is more important than the act of doing it because you can go through the motions and yield little results if your head is not in the game.
It took me a few months to grasp this concept with BJJ, and my practice started to improve when I did. I felt my conditioning improve, I began to relax in uncomfortable positions, and I tapped to pressure a hell of a lot less since I wasn't feeling panicked and rushed.
Fitness isn't a box.
I spent years of my life keeping myself in a box. When I was a rugby player, it was my identity. When I was a strongman and powerlifter, that became my identity—the same thing with men's physique, CrossFit, and football.
I recognize the fallacy of those actions, and I am doing my best not to be so immersed in my BJJ practice that I forget how to live for myself.
I know I am extreme, but many of those extremes were coping mechanisms for my PTSD. If I buried myself in physical pain, the mental pain would diminish temporarily. I attempted to use lifting and sports as the only therapy source, which was counter-productive to what I needed.
Because I have walked the walk in the iron world, I can see people fall into the same trap I did. Tribalism, dogma, "nobody wants to do the hard work" bullshit when millions of people are in gyms, black-and-white thinking, a lack of understanding of anyone not like you, and more.
The reality is much more fluid. A box doesn't exist for many of us. Most people in gyms will never compete, they will never want to eat "clean" 100% of the time, their "off-season" isn't "all gas no brakes," and they have no desire to be the strongest man at Lifetime Fitness.
They have careers, children, partners, obligations, stressors, and lives outside of the 4-6 hours a week they have set aside for exercise.
They have family meal time and nights out with friends, and they will stay up later on the weekend and not always wake up at 4:01 am to take a pic of their watch in black and white.
There are niches in the fitness world, and I have fallen into many of them over the years. I have trained national and world record-holding lifters, men's physique winners, professional athletes, and high-performing people with such Type-A personalities that they control every aspect of their lives like a clock ticking. None are inherently wrong, but what about the people whose goals fall into the "I want to look and feel better" camp?
That is the grey area of life, where 90% of us reside. The place I have desperately searched to be in.
Contrary to the messaging from the popular kids, it's perfectly ok to want to look good, feel better, and enjoy life without tracking everything to the gram, counting every rep diligently, training five days a week, and defining your specific goal.
The goal is "look good, feel better."
It's a noble goal, and if you understood that box is wide, broad, and diverse, you would be able to train with weights, pick up a fun activity or two like yoga, hiking, rowing, running, or anything physical you wish, eat good food and not feel guilty about it because you will learn to moderate, not restrict. It doesn't need you to bring a food scale to every meal.
It's an area worth residing in because you will free yourself to live authentically.
Have a great week.
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(1) Snell, B. R., MD (2022, May 2). Strength Training: The Missing Piece in Fitness That Helps Fight Depression. Penn Medicine: Lancaster General Health. https://www.lancastergeneralhealth.org/health-hub-home/2022/may/strength-training-the-missing-piece-in-fitness-that-helps-fight-depression
(2) https://www.twostepsfromhell.com/