GTFOH With That Nonsense (A Rant)

Occasionally, you may find yourself reading some funny articles about fitness. One of the most popular topics for those funny articles is "most annoying people at the gym". I don't even have to link to any of those; just type the words "most annoying people in the gym" into Google, and you'll get a whole slew of listicles showing exactly that.

One that almost always makes the list is Unsolicited Gym Advice Guy.

For me, that guy has always been at the top of my list. You're at the gym, minding your own fucking business, when some asshole decides he wants to come up to you and critique you on your form, comment on the ineffectiveness of whatever exercise you're doing, and otherwise try to tear you down. They're often annoying as fuck because you know they have no idea what they're talking about. On the rare occasions they do, you don't recall making an appointment with them to have as a personal trainer. You want that fucker to mind his own goddamn business.

I consider workouts like I consider masturbation. It's preferred to be done by yourself, cool if you brought someone along, but under no circumstances, do you want some stranger to stop on by and offer to help.

And that was back before I started lifting heavy. Back then, it didn't anger me so much as it did annoy me.

The past week my Unsolicited Gym Advice Guys weren't at the gym. They were at my workplace.

The first time, a co-worker wondered why I was lugging around a giant bag of protein. I explained that I eat protein shakes as a part of my diet. He decided to go into a big lecture on how they're high in calories, blah, blah, blah.

The second time was when somebody decided to bring in a couple dozen donuts for our crew to thank us for helping them out a few days ago when they were in distress. My boss (Boss 1) wondered why I wasn't taking one and I explained that I'm on a diet. I explain that I'm on a carb cycle because I'm trying to cut my body fat without losing muscle. He was with my other boss (Boss 2).

Boss 2: Have you tried cardio?
Me: No.
Boss 2: You should really do cardio. It's great for fat loss.
Me: (Stares motherfuckerly)
Boss 1: You picked a bad time to decide to go on a diet! It's almost Christmas!
Me: No argument here.

Boss 1 really gets no argument from me. I really did pick a bad time to start cutting. I might write another entry about doing that during the holidays.

But Boss 2 and the guy from scenario one have both confided in me a few months ago that they've never been able to bench press more than 200 pounds. In fact, both have said that they struggle to do more than 185.

Yeah, when I can bench press 80 pounds more than you, here's what you can do with your opinion:

What I wanted to say to both of them was, "Motherfucker, I can deadlift 315 pounds. Can you deadlift 315 pounds?" I already know the answer because they've told me. It's NO. I didn't say that, because I'm at work, and I also don't feel like being the dick that brings down their self confidence.

I'm aware of how arrogant this sounds. I don't give a shit. You've been reading this blog long enough to know that there are times when I'm having bad days at the gym, where I'm frustrated as hell at my lack of progress, and have flat out had epic fails in my fitness journey. I still have a long way to go to reach my goals, and I'm far from perfect. I've shared all my failings with you in the past and I'll definitely be doing it in the future. I'm no fitness god. But if some barely-lifting asshole decides to give me a bunch of advice that obviously didn't work for them, you can consider me fucking Globo Gym. Call me an asshole. I don't care.

Do Over/I Almost Quit

Throughout my journey to get to the thousand pound club, I've been meaning to write at least once a week to measure my progress; however, I didn't have time to write last week. Hell, I didn't even have enough time to finish my workouts last week.

Last week was a total bust. I got halfway through the week when my work schedule gave me the excuse to get lackadaisical and not finish. So this week is week one of my new workout cycle. This is my do over week.

I almost quit altogether on Friday. Friday wasn't even a hard day for lifting. The plan was to do 4x8 of 215 pound squats, with 2x8 of 230 pound deadlifts. A workout so easy for me, I could do it on three hours of sleep if I had to.

There were two things that killed my motivation that day. The first was seeing the latest Alan Thrall video where he showed one of his trainees attempt to run a mile in under eight minutes. Here's the video:

In the video, he says his best squat is 507 pounds (wtf?), his bench press is 400 pounds, his deadlift is 620 pounds.

I usually watch Alan Thrall's videos for inspiration, but this video killed my motivation to workout.

Sweet Christmas, I'm busting my ass to reach the thousand pound club, and this kid is already in the fifteen hundred pound club!

I felt weak as fuck just hearing that. I watched the rest of the video with a nagging feeling at my subconscious that what I'm doing is pointless. I can bust my ass all I want, but this kid will always be able to outlift me. Sure, Alan Thrall can outlift me, but he's Alan Fucking Thrall! This is some rando kid that makes me look like a schlub.

And then there was the timing of my workout. Like I said in my last entry, part of the reason why I didn't progress as much as I had hoped in the first cycle was that my workout times were sporadic throughout the day. One day I'd be working out at home in the morning, the next I'd be working out just after midnight at the gym. So I made it a point to workout in the morning at home as much as possible. I have to get up at 7:30 a.m. during the week so I can get my oldest kid ready for school in the morning, so working out at midnight at the gym was becoming an option I could ill afford.

The problem is, I like working out in the morning as much as I like having a boot to the face.

I think this goes back to the days when I did karate. Most martial arts classes are done in the evening, and since that's when I trained, my body is just wired to work out at night.

So when I started loading up weights to do this workout, I was less than motivated. That's an understatement. I was disgusted with this workout. I was tired. I was pissed off that I even had to do this workout. I wanted to quit. What's the fucking point when some rando ass kid is kicking your ass up and down the block no matter how hard you work?

My mind went through all the typical defense/motivation mechanisms that I have built up to get me to train, and none of them worked. People are coming to hurt you, no one is coming to help you, and you will be punished for defending yourself. Fight anyway, I repeated to myself in my head. Well, why in the fuck do I have to keep fighting? I'm 36 years old already! Why do I have to keep training to fight some enemy that will come after me? Why should I have to keep training? IT'S NOT FAIR!

I summoned Beast in my mind, but he had nothing to say for the first time. He just shrugged.

Every mental exercise I had in my brain to overcome lack of motivation was every bit as exhausted as I was physically. I was within a hair's breath of just quitting and going back on the couch and watching videos on the internet.

My mind finally said, "You're a warrior."

That was it. No big speech. No rationalizing of why I need to train. Nothing that made any sense. Just three words that gave me the motivation to continue with my training.

It doesn't make any sense to me at all why those three words overcame all of my objections to continue on this path. I'd like to write an entire blog post about why those words motivated me, but the simple truth is that I have no idea why they worked. They just did.

I finished my workout, and predictably, smoked it like a cheap cigar.

After the workout, I took inventory of my physical prowess and did a very real, rational level of reasoning.

Yeah, some rando kid on the internet can outlift me. Yet I had to be honest and ask myself if I have ever seen anyone in the real world that lifts more than I do.

I've seen a handful of people that can outlift me in the many gyms that I've worked out in in my entire lifetime. I can count on one hand the number of people that I've seen bench press more than two hundred pounds. The same goes with the squat and deadlift. I've rarely seen a man that can do more than three hundred pounds on either.

Yeah, that rando kid can outlift me. But he's the outlier. He's the rarity.

I'm not the strongest. That's a fact. But I'm stronger than most.

I'm writing this because I have some Facebook friends that read this blog and tell me that I'm an inspiration to them. I could omit this entire post and pretend that my journey to greatness is easy and without struggle. The truth is that it isn't. We're going to have bad days. It doesn't matter how we decided to choose our journey to greatness, there's always going to be those days when we want to quit.

But, as that Five for Fighting song says, even we superheroes have the right to bleed.

We have the right to admit our weaknesses. We're also strong enough to keep training, anyway.