Everyone trains for different reasons. These reasons are usually fairly superficial in the beginning, generally bred on a whim following a particular debaucherous weekend complete with excessive inebriation and poor life choices. Or following the awkward realisation that you may have let yourself slide by the wayside after a particularly ill-advised and pasty trip to the beach, culminating in an emotional black out and a scurry to the closest, cheapest gym to sign up for every package, class or promotion they offer. After all you don’t want to get big or anything, just a bit of a six pack. How hard can it be? However just like the way your priorities shift greatly at 6% phone battery, or perhaps a more relevant analogy is that in the same way that your body undergoes adaption and growth, so too do your motivations grow and adapt. The standards and rituals that you begin to impose upon your lifestyle, the nutritional restrictions, the early mornings or late evenings in the gym begin to transfer into life outside of the gym. Like anything, self-control and will power can be trained and will respond to conditioning, and the more control you exert over your lifestyle, the greater the benefits. As you begin to commit to these standards there is a good chance people who don’t will (understandably) mock you. After all it’s our nature to view others strengths as weaknesses and our own weakness’s as strength. To be honest sometimes I used to have a hard time coming to grips with ridiculousness of it all. People using tools to literally torture themselves for hours a week, then gorging themselves on massive quantities of terrible food, just so they, grown men can get on stage in fake tan and sparkly G-strings and have a panel of strangers judge them. Or man monsters who experience injuries that would cripple lesser men and debilitating pain, just to dedicate their entire to standing up with slightly more weight of the ground. I imagine a teacher in a class room in a hundred years trying to explain bro culture to a classroom full of children who stare back uncomprehendingly. So its no wonder that those who don’t train will murmur and snigger, content to dismiss you as vein or conceited, not realising that at some point the ends had become the means, and the significance you feel from the continual realisation of self-imposed goals is more of a reward then they could ever understand. After all exercise makes you feel good on a chemical level. It literally makes you happy. However the training itself is just your own personal way of measuring self-improvement, a way to keep score. And once you come to grips with this, you realise that for most people exercising is one of the inherently beneficial things in this life. There will also be another sub culture of individuals that though seemingly like-minded at a glance, could not be on a completely different path to your own. ‘The unresourceful alpha.’ (That’s a Hodge-ism.) They will stride the gym searching for significance in the mirrors, and for where the down lighting most accentuates their imaginary lat spread. As soon as they realised weight training was hard they shelled out more on a cycle of testosterone then they have spent in their entire lives on books. I have no qualms with people utilising anabolics, after all an individual’s morals are their own, but if they do so, they should endeavour to be at the very least exceptional, however without the personal growth and work ethic to mirror the gains in strength they end up just being exceptionally mediocre. The videos show elite bodybuilders and powerlifters going ‘beastmode’ and screaming their way through endless dropsets on youtube and they try to mirror that in the gym (with hilarious results), but what they don’t see is the mindset of those individuals. The time dedicated to gratitude’s, the affirmations, and the mindset, whether done unconsciously or not. I doubt you can even comprehend the mental strength it takes to dedicate your life to a sport that at its pinnacle will cost you more to prepare for then the prize itself. I cant. I could outline the numerous health and cognitive benefits of resistance training, however there would be no point. Because that isn’t enough to inspire you to action. We aren’t motivated by statistics and articles on bone density. We are inspired by inhuman physiques and freakish strength. The health benefits are a by-product. “The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.” -Henry Rollins. Co-written by Nat Hodges and Matt Cordery wethepowerful.au/significance/
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:29:52 +0000