Who Are You?

Ever ask yourself that question? Who are you? Who are trying to be? What are you trying to achieve? What are you doing to get there? I do it all the time. I was just doing it on Saturday on my bike. I was on my trainer in the cellar doing a brutal interval session. The session went something like this:

warmup with an easy spin for about 10 minutes, then:
- seated surge at high power output (350W +) for 10 seconds
- pedal at endurance power (~180W) for 20 seconds. This is not easy spinning, it's pedaling hard enough to know that you're working so it's really not a break.
- Repeat 90 times (not a typo, I did 90 consecutive intervals)
- cool down for 15 minutes

This interval session was specific to cyclocross races where you need to surge and pull back, surge and pull back, repeatedly. A race lasts 45 minutes in the elite masters field which is why I did 90 intervals. Doing 20 or even 50 intervals would be OK, but it's not going to be as beneficial as going for the full 45 minutes. This interval session was one of the more brutal sessions I've done on a bike. About 20 intervals in, and with 70 to go, I start asking myself why the hell do I do this? Why do I have to work so damn hard? What am I trying to accomplish? It's not like I'm making any money racing. Is it really worth the amount of pain I put myself into? Who am I trying to be? These questions continue for the next 30 or 40 intervals. For the last 30 intervals the soul searching stops and is replaced by an overwhelming desire to just do whatever it takes to finish and get off the damn bike.

It would have been so easy to stop after 20 minutes of intervals. After all, 40 intervals is quite a bit, isn't it? It would have been so easy to let my power output reduce after about 50 intervals, to maybe 300W on the surges. What the hell, 300 W is still a pretty good amount of power for a guy my size to be pushing out. I could have really rested during the 20 second endurance power phase of the intervals and let myself spin out at about 120W or easier like in a recovery ride. Why not, the important part is the high power part of the interval, isn't it? There are about 1000 different things that I could have done to make it easier (I know this because about 999 of them went through my head over the course of the 90 intervals), but I didn't choose any of them. It's not who I am.

When I ask myself, "Who are you?", I want to be satisfied with the answer I come up with. I want to know that I am doing whatever it takes to get to where I want to be. Where that is will always be changing. That's because I'm always setting new goals for myself. The thing that doesn't change is that I continue to have a lifestyle and a training plan that supports my goals. I don't work out hard during the week and then go out and get hammered all weekend. I don't eat healthy for two weeks and then spend a week eating the new Angus burgers at McDonalds. When I go on vacation, it doesn't mean I spend a week becoming a different person that sits around on the beach with a drink in one hand and a chili dog in the other. Why would I?

We are all as strong as our weakest link. It's the weakest link that will limit your ability to perform. In physical terms this may be some part of your body that is weak relative to everything else. In the bodybuilder types down at Globo Gym we see this all the time, they spend hours benching and curling weights and they have two little peg legs to support their massive upper bodies. Kind of like a tick. But it goes beyond the physical part. The lifestyle is even more important. If you want to be in the best physical and mental state possible, then it is the lifestyle that will determine how far you can go. Your lifestyle needs to support your goals. If your goal is to be disease free, healthy, and strong well into your 80's or 90's, then your lifestyle needs to consist of healthy choices and lots of vigorous physical activity. It's important to understand what it is you want to be. You can't be like the old Chevy El Camino which couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a pickup truck or a car and now finds itself up on blocks in the backyard of your redneck neighbor's house :) You can't be undecided and try to be many different things that are often contradictory to each other.

Let me give you two examples using imaginary people (if they resemble somebody you are or somebody you know, then it is completely coincidental)... The first imaginary person we'll talk about works out at least 4 days a week at the local Chrome and Fern Palace. He can bench press almost 2x his bodyweight and back squat almost 3x his bodyweight. He does sets of biceps curls with 100# barbells. For "cardio" he jogs on the treadmill or rides the stationary bike at an aerobic pace which is just high enough to sweat out all the toxins that he spent putting into his body over the weekend. On the weekend he hangs out with friends, works on the house, watches football games, sometimes goes to the bars with his buddies. He gets hammered and eats pizza and cheese steak subs. But it's OK because he's going to be back on the treadmill on Monday sweating all the shit out of his body. He plays football with the kids and is sore for three days because his workouts don't really help to do things like play sports or function in real life. During the week he drinks at night after work, 2 drinks, maybe 3 or 4, maybe more if Monday Night Football has him up to midnight. He drags his ass out of bed every morning and his energy levels suck for the most part. He realizes that his body feels worse as time goes on but hopes it's more to do with age rather than lifestyle. But, hey, he can bench almost 2x his bodyweight and look at the guns on him! Fkn awesome, dude!

Imaginary person two works out practically every day but rests once or twice a week to recover depending on the intensity of the workouts during the week and the phase of his training plan. This person has a training plan. He has goals. He knows where he is with respect to his goals. His training is targeted at performance, it's not used to flush toxins out of the body because for the most part there really aren't any. He eats clean, he doesn't drink alcohol, he doesn't smoke. His energy levels are always high and he's almost always happy. He is active all the time. When he vacations it's in the mountains, in the woods, on the lakes, in the ocean. He experiences practically everything there is to experience because that's what his training and his lifestyle allows him to do. He knows no bounds and is always optimistic about what the future will bring. He doesn't care about age because he knows that he feels great pretty much all the time and is stronger today than he has ever been in his life and there's really nothing that's going to change that for him as long as he sticks to what's working for him now.

OK, so you're thinking the second person is me, right? You'd be right... Would you be surprised to know that the first person is me too? Well it was.. Except I was actually worse than what I described there. So if you think some of these blog entries are preachy from some guy who doesn't know anything other than some crazy super healthy lifestyle you'd be wrong. I've been on the other end and I know better than most how it feels. And I can tell you from experience that the lifestyle that I'm living right now is about 1 billion times better than the one I had before. And if you think you can't get to where I am now you'd be wrong. I have yet to see one person step through the door of Dynamic Strength and Conditioning that was anywhere near as bad off as I was as little as 5 years ago. What we're doing at the gym is life-changing. That's not an understatement. If you commit to what we're doing then you are committing to a complete lifestyle that will absolutely change the way you look and feel about everything.

First thing you have to figure out is who you are. Second is figure out if that's who you want to be. If the two answers contradict each other then it's time to start working on the first one. It's never too late and there is always somebody that can guide you to where you want to go.

Best,
kevin